Musk v. Altman, Day 3 of Trial in the court

Elon Musk and Altman appeared for the third day on Wednesday April 29, 2026, in the federal court in Oakland for what will be one of the pivotal technology trials in the US. It was a day of extremes, as Musk was presented as the ultimate entrepreneur in a direct examination, but then torn apart in a cross-examination.

How Musk’s start the trial?

Musk Starts With the Basics,In simple terms, that was Musk’s lawyer, Steven Molo’s, question to him. As Local News Matters reported, Musk told the court: “It’s really very simple. It’s not ok to steal a charity.” He went on to tell the jury that if he lost the case, “the entire foundation of charity in the U.S. will be destroyed.” This set the stage for the rest of the trial.

Molo then proceeded to outline Musk’s career, as a larger-than-life visionary focused on the future of humanity. Musk spoke about founding SpaceX to make humans multiplanetary, Tesla to help accelerate the shift to clean energy and Neuralink to improve communication between humans and computers. He told the jury he works 80-100 hours a week and, in a straight-faced manner: “I don’t own any boats or anything.”

His Contributions to OpenAI, Musk said he had done much more for OpenAI than fund it. He told Local News Matters he advised Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman on how to build a company, recruited engineering talent, including Ilya Sutskever, who he said was one of the three most important AI scientists in the world, and played a critical role in the company’s early years. He concluded: “without me, there is no OpenAI”.

His lawyer also read out an effusive email from Sutskever that referred to Musk as “the most overwhelmingly competent person in the world.” Musk was no better: “Smart people want to work for me.”

The For-Profit Question Gets Complicated, The morning was dominated by discussion of OpenAI’s 2017 discussions of creating a for-profit entity. Musk confirmed he was part of the talks and that, at one point, there was a term sheet going around that he should be entitled to 51% of the equity in a for-profit version. In the end, he said, he threatened that they would either go all-out for-profit or nonprofit. Altman and Brockman decided to go non-profit pretty fast, he said. Local News Matters reports that Musk said he wasn’t opposed to having a for-profit version of OpenAI but he was opposed to having a for-profit version that is “the main event”, as he said OpenAI became.

Cross-Examination Turns Combative,OpenAI’s chief counsel William Savitt had three main arguments against Musk in his cross-examination. 

For one, he said Musk’s worries about the for-profit nature were not serious, given the 2017 discussions of equity that showed the company was not opposed to the for-profit business model, but that it did not want to not be able to have full control. This was not the case, said Musk, who wanted to be in charge at the start so it would be “going in the right direction”.

Second, Savitt’s theory of the case was that Musk could have had information suggesting wrongdoing since 2019, but only filed a lawsuit in 2024. Savitt made a lot of old emails and text messages available to suggest that Musk was aware of the situation at OpenAI in 2024, before he filed his lawsuit.

Third, Savitt noted many discrepancies between Musk’s testimony and his deposition, indicating that he is not reliable, he said. Musk said he couldn’t remember documents dated seven or eight years ago, Savitt said: if you can’t remember, then you have been too slow to bring this action.

Musk’s cross-examination is not complete due to the judge dismissing the jury on Wednesday. He will resume on Thursday. Microsoft’s lawyer will have a brief cross-examination of Musk.

When this arguments close?

Closing arguments will be Thursday May 14 and verdict could be as early as next week. The result may impact OpenAI’s future and could serve as a blueprint for the management of AI firms. TheTweaks is here to provide you with the latest news surrounding AI. Find the complete trial tracker here and stay updated about all OpenAI news and updates

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