The jury has the case — Musk versus Altman is out of the lawyers' hands now. Welcome to Musk v Altman Daily — and yeah, this is the day we've been circling all week. Both sides took their swings: Musk got painted as selective on the stand, Altman got called a liar, and now the jury has to figure out what was actually promised when OpenAI was founded. And somehow Elon found time to fly to China mid-trial, so his own lawyer had to apologize to the court. We'll get into that. GV Wire writes:
A lawyer for Elon Musk hammered at the credibility of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Thursday, near the end of a trial over whether to hold the ChatGPT maker and its leaders responsible for transforming the nonprofit into a vehicle to enrich themselves.
Closing arguments wrapped in Oakland yesterday — GV Wire and Reuters have the recap. Musk's team went after Altman's credibility hard, and OpenAI came back with a statute-of-limitations defense: Musk waited too long to sue, and they say he wasn't nearly as central to OpenAI's success as he claims. OpenAI's lawyer actually said, quote, 'all Mr. Musk can do is come to court.' That's a line. But honestly, if a charity built to benefit humanity gets turned into a for-profit play, yeah, I want a court looking at that. The core claims are breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment — and Musk says he was manipulated into donating $38 million. Those are real claims. Whether the facts back them up is what this jury has to decide. Tim Fernholz, writing in TechCrunch:
Nine California jurors are now deliberating over the future of OpenAI, the world-leading artificial intelligence lab. While the trial exploring Elon Musk’s case against OpenAI’s other cofounders and Microsoft has covered territory ranging from the breakup of the founders in 2018 to Altman’s firing and rehiring in 2023, the jurors will be considering a set of fairly narrow questions.
TechCrunch has the cleanest breakdown yet of what these nine California jurors are actually deciding — and it's narrower than the courtroom drama made it sound. The three questions are breach of charitable trust, unjust enrichment, and whether Microsoft knowingly aided any of it. Microsoft is the one I keep coming back to. If they knew Musk's donations came with strings and still poured billions in, that's not a technicality — that's a giant company betting it could outrun a charity's founding promise. The witness phase we left yesterday is now in the jury's hands — and OpenAI's best escape hatch may be procedural: the statute of limitations. If the harm legally happened before August 2021, some of these claims could be dead on arrival, no matter what anyone thinks about the mission drift. So OpenAI's defense might literally be, 'you waited too long to complain' — not 'we did nothing wrong.' That's not exactly a moral victory lap. Legally right and morally right are different columns, Devin. Statutes of limitations exist for real reasons. It's a legitimate defense, even if it makes your PR team sweat. Here's B2B News NZ:
Altman, co-founder and chief executive of OpenAI, told a federal jury that Musk repeatedly pushed for greater control of the organisation and supported a shift towards a more traditional for-profit structure capable of attracting large-scale investment.
B2B News NZ is running testimony out of the Oakland federal courthouse — and Sam Altman is telling the jury Elon Musk didn't just want a seat at the table, he wanted the table, the building, and apparently a hereditary deed to pass down to his kids. Wait — he literally said control should pass to his children? The guy suing OpenAI for abandoning its nonprofit mission wanted to turn it into a family dynasty? That's the testimony. And legally, it matters — Musk's whole case rests on OpenAI betraying its charitable mission, but if Altman's account holds up, the jury's going to hear that Musk himself was pushing for a for-profit restructure and personal control long before the current setup existed. So Musk's argument is basically, 'they corrupted my vision' — except his vision was apparently, 'I run it forever and then my heirs do.' That's not a nonprofit ethos, that's a tech monarchy. This one's from Egypt Independent:
Musk is suing the company and its leaders over allegations that OpenAI, Altman and president Greg Brockman breached their charitable trust when OpenAI shifted from its nonprofit mission to include a profit-oriented structure. Microsoft, an early investor in OpenAI, is named as a co-defendant.
Cross-examination of Sam Altman kicked off Tuesday in Oakland, and Musk's attorney opened with a single question: 'Are you completely trustworthy?' Legally speaking, that's less a question and more a grenade. I mean, asking the CEO of a for-profit AI giant if he's trustworthy — in a case literally about whether he betrayed a nonprofit mission — that's not a question, that's a closing argument in six words. The legal core here is breach of charitable trust — Musk's team says the pivot away from nonprofit structure violated what OpenAI was founded to do. OpenAI's answer is that Musk wanted a for-profit model himself and only sued after he lost influence. And that's what makes this messy — both of those things can be true, right? Musk could have wanted control, and OpenAI could have broken its founding promise. The judge has to untangle whose bad faith came first. This one's from CNBC:
Elon Musk’s lead counsel, Steven Molo, apologized to the jury for his absence on Thursday, with the Tesla and SpaceX CEO accompanying President Donald Trump in China as closing arguments were made in the Musk-Altman trial. “This is something he is passionate about,” Molo assured the jury about Musk’s attention to the trial.
Closing arguments in Musk v. Altman, and Musk's own lead counsel had to start with an apology — because his client is in Beijing with the President. Judge Gonzalez Rogers had Musk on recall status, so he was supposed to be available on short notice. That's real procedural exposure, not just bad optics. He sued OpenAI because he cares so deeply about its mission, and then skipped his own closing arguments to tour the Great Hall of the People. 'This is something he is passionate about,' his lawyer told the jury. About which thing, exactly? To be fair, being in China with a sitting president isn't a leisure trip. But passion doesn't override recall status, and a jury looking at his empty chair during closings is not nothing. If Musk v Altman Daily helps you keep up, subscribe wherever you're listening. And if you can, leave a quick review — it really helps other people find the show.
If you want to dig deeper into anything we covered today, we've put links to every story in the show notes. Go take a look there for the pieces that caught your ear.
That's Musk v Altman Daily for this Friday. This is a Lantern Podcast.