May 8, 2026, 10:00 AM UTC If the court evidence Elon Musk presents against OpenAI is damning enough, it could have ripple effects outside of the courtroom. Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images Elon Musk’s case against OpenAI is flimsy, but there’s some there there OpenAI was founded in 2015 with the tax-deductible mission of building AI “unconstrained by a need to generate financial return.” But building AI has become much more expensive than it was then, and without a for-profit arm, OpenAI almost certainly couldn’t build the kind of tools it does today, such as ChatGPT. Musk always knew this about OpenAI’s growth trajectory, Brockman and CEO Sam Altman have argued, and his suit is just bitter grapes. He’s jealous, they say, of how much better OpenAI’s AI models are to his own efforts. If OpenAI is Nancy Kerrigan, the implicit argument goes, then Musk’s xAI is Tonya Harding, eager to break her talented competitor’s knee. But Musk has tried to paint OpenAI as the villain that stole a charity, and himself as a singular voice for nonprofit integrity, a pure-hearted soldier set on ensuring the OpenAI Foundation gets its fair due. (As a Ringer piece on the suit put it: “Elon Musk takes the stand for…humanity?”) OpenAI compensated its nonprofit arm with a 26 percent stake worth over $200 billion in the newly formed corporation, which is a lot, but notably less than what it awarded employee-investors like Brockman and its partner Microsoft when it went corporate. Musk is asking the court for $150 billion in restitution for his donations. He has vowed to donate any damages to the OpenAI Foundation, which is already one of the world’s wealthiest charities. He could well have a case on this financial front, which “is about Musk personally, and the harm that he might have suffered,” said Peter Molk, a professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. “This isn’t money that he needs personally,” but it would also hobble an opponent at a key moment in the race for AI dominance. but it does certainly give the company a black eye.” But Musk’s other legal requests — which include court orders that remove Altman from power and outright undo OpenAI’s for-profit restructuring — are bigger legal swings, in part because they explicitly touch on questions that have already been settled in the company’s negotiations with the government. A win on these grounds “would be disruptive in a way that courts are hesitant to be disruptive,” said Brunson, the Loyola legal scholar. But the big decisions on OpenAI might come from regulators, not the courtroom Even if Musk doesn’t win his case, he’ll have managed to air out a lot of OpenAI’s dirty laundry in the process. “By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America,” Musk texted Brockman just before the trial began. “If you insist, so it will be.” That may be hyperbole, but Musk’s lawsuit certainly is intensifying the storm of criticism that has been swirling since OpenAI’s restructuring deal was approved last October. And it could be enough to convince the attorneys general to reconsider at least some of its terms. “I would be surprised if the AG knew the extent to which OpenAI never did a valuation” of the OpenAI foundation’s worth, said Bracy of TechEquity. “I would be surprised if he knew the extent to which the conflicts of interest were embedded up and down the company. I would be surprised if he knew about how Greg Brockman was musing about how he could become a billionaire.” She has no expectation that the attorney general will attempt to force OpenAI to somehow crawl back into its nonprofit skin. Instead, “at this point, I would like to see the nonprofit fairly compensated for the assets,” — which Bracy, like Musk, thinks could be worth significantly more than the 26 percent stake OpenAI assigned to it — alongside “some independent governance of those assets,” she said. With the exception of one member, the OpenAI Foundation’s board of directors is currently identical to that of the for-profit entity, with its membership at least partially orchestrated by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, according to court documents. Both of those asks seem plausible, legal experts told me, especially if the evidence that’s come up in trial so far was not available to the attorneys general. In theory, “it would have to be some awfully damning stuff to get the AG to open this back up again,” said Molk, but they are also elected officials, “so they can’t just ignore a wave of public outcry.” So far, there’s no smoking gun — or undeniable evidence that OpenAI outright lied to the government when it negotiated its restructuring deal — at least not yet. But the revelations that Brockman quietly held tens of billions of dollars in equity, and new details about his and Altman’s business dealings with OpenAI partners such as Cerebras, do add substance to claims that the company might not have had the nonprofit arm’s interests in mind when it valued its stake. “If the attorney general were to see that, yes, in fact, the pricing was wrong, they underpaid, that would be justification” for them to revisit their agreements, Brunson said. “I could see that as being a more likely result than Elon Musk winning, and that result would basically be that OpenAI, the for-profit, has to give more money to OpenAI, the nonprofit.” A few months after his 2017 diary entry about becoming a billionaire, court documents show Brockman vacillated over what to do with OpenAI. “It’d be wrong to steal the non-profit,” he wrote one day, then “it would be nice to be making the billions” days later. “Can’t see us turning this into a for-profit without a very nasty fight,” he wrote in November 2017. Within about a year, Musk left OpenAI and Brockman received a founding stake of the company that would go on to make him very rich. You’ve read 1 article in the last month Here at Vox, we're unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you — threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country. Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. By becoming a Vox Member, you directly strengthen our ability to deliver in-depth, independent reporting that drives meaningful change. We rely on readers like you — join us. Swati Sharma