Limitless Podcast - The Trial Begins: Elon vs Sam Altman

Episode Date: April 30, 2026

The courtroom showdown between Elon Musk and Sam Altman over OpenAI has begun, with stakes hitting $850 billion and potential damages of $134 billion. As Musk claims he was foundational to OpenAI’s success, Altman’s defense counters with narratives of Musk's bitterness following his exit. We uncover intriguing diary entries from co-founder Greg Brockman that cast doubt on OpenAI's nonprofit ideals.------🌌 LIMITLESS HQ ⬇️NEWSLETTER:    https://limitlessft.substack.com/FOLLOW ON X:   https://x.com/LimitlessFTSPOTIFY:             https://open.spotify.com/show/5oV29YUL8AzzwXkxEXlRMQAPPLE:                 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/limitless-podcast/id1813210890RSS FEED:           https://limitlessft.substack.com/------TIMESTAMPS0:00 The Trial of the Decade1:51 The Power Struggle2:55 Testimonies Begin5:56 The Smoking Gun7:48 Compelling Arguments13:51 The Stakes of the Trial16:56 Peter Thiel's Perspective19:35 The PR Implications20:58 Closing Thoughts------RESOURCESJosh: https://x.com/JoshKaleEjaaz: https://x.com/cryptopunk7213------Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:https://www.bankless.com/disclosures⁠

Two people sat across from each other at a federal courtroom in Oakland yesterday. One is the most valuable person in the world. The other runs the most valuable startup in history. They built it together decades ago. Now, one is trying to take it from the other. Those people involved Elon Musk and Sam Altman. And the numbers attached are pretty hard to believe. It's an $850 billion company, $134 billion in damages,

and a potential $1 trillion IPO that might not go through. In the case, this trial goes in an unfavorable way for Open AI. Whatever the verdict is, the rules of how AI gets built in America is about to change. And this is probably the trial of the decade. Yeah, this is the combination of a decade-long grudge between Sam Ockman and Elon Musk. And in order to talk about what happened yesterday and what's happening today with the trial, I think it's important to set some context.

So we created this timeline of the experience, right? Thank you, Claude. So we used a neutral party, by the way. No chat, GBT, no XAI. It's just, it's just, Claude. Okay. So exactly 11 years ago, Elon Musk and Sam Worma got together and had this idea to create an AI startup called OpenAI, specifically a non-profit foundation that would create AI superintelligence and then use it for the benefit of humanity. So the key point here is that they wouldn't request to turn a profit. But it was only just over two years later in 2017 that there was a power struggle. And the struggle was specifically over wanting to turn a profit. And the struggle was specifically over wanting to turn a profit. And it was only just over,

to turn OpenAI into a for-profit. Now, if you looked at the trial today, you would assume that was Sam Altman calling for it, but it was actually Elon Musk himself. He said he wanted to convert Open AI into a for-profit and merge it into Tesla. He thought he had the chops and power to be able to do that. And the reason why he thought that was he had agreed to fund the entire endeavor up to the tune of a billion dollars. Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, who were key co-founders of Open AI at the time, rejected that proposal, but wanted to figure out another way to work with him. But Musk couldn't get agreeance on both sides. And in 2018, he decided to leave. But it was only a year later that Sam Altman and Greg Rockman thought, you know what? We will turn this into a for-profit. And we will

own major stakes in this ourselves. So obviously, Elon Musk was a bit salty about this, but he didn't believe they had the chops to create a winning AI startup. But of course, as we know the story goes, three years later, chat GPT launches it goes completely viral and Open AI becomes one of the most valuable privately held startups in the entire world. And of course at this point, they are shifting more towards a for-profit. So Elon Musk looks at the success and he's like, ha, I'm owed reparations from this. I co-founded Open Air. He changes his tune. He's now he wants a piece of the pie. And what he's seeking in today's culmination of a trial is exactly 134. billion dollars, so he's not really asking for much, and for the polite removal of Sam Altman

and Greg Brockman from the board of opening eye. So that is the context that brought us here today. It's funny because now they're actually on the stand. So as of this week, people are on the stand. They're beginning testifying. Elon just went up yesterday for the opening remarks. Now, these are the softball questions that his own lawyer asked him. But on the stand, I mean, he had a pretty compelling case. He said he came up with the idea. He came up with the name. He recruited the key people. He taught them everything that he knew. And then he provided. all of the initial funding. So he essentially did everything in the early stages of Open AI, including the recruitment of the single most important person to Open AI, a lot will argue,

which is Ilya said Skever. Now, Ilya is the reason why Larry Page will no longer talk to Elon because Larry Page deemed him as his best employee. Elon was able to convince him to come to Open AI and to start something powerful with Greg and Sam. Now, he's also responsible for recruiting Microsoft Cloud and Nvidia compute. I mean, I remember listening to a conversation with Jensen where one of the first people to ever believe in these chips was Elon, who was buying them and recruiting Nvidia's help on behalf of Open AI, not Tesla, not SpaceX, for Open AI. So it's clear that he did a lot and he wanted it to be known as he got started with the court briefing yesterday. So let's now dive into what exactly happened yesterday. This is a closed trial in the sense that it

isn't public. There's 15 reporters, probably totally 30 people in the room, but the stars of the show are in the courtroom themselves. Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and Elon Musk. And for the first day, Elon Musk decides to put his first witness up to the stand. And that's himself, of course, Elon Musk, who is testifying for himself on behalf of his case. And the site that Elon Musk and his lawyer is basically making is, and this is a direct quote, ladies and gentlemen, we are here today because the defendants in this case, Open AI, stole a charity. And they go on to make the point that Elon Musk is an immigrant.

into the US. He worked hard. He busked tables. And he put in his own hard-earned money up to the tune of $44 million, so not that $1 billion that I mentioned earlier, into Open AI to make it success that it is today. And therefore, he has owed some form of payment. Now, he's asking for a large chunk, $134 billion, but that money doesn't actually go to Elon Musk. He's going to send that to a nonprofit, as was originally attended in Open AI. But the main point here is it's a philosophical and brand-related dunk on his biggest competitor versus XAI, for example. Now, Open AI's lawyer himself says, we are here because Mr. Musk didn't get his way at Open AI. That's what happened. He quit saying that they would fail for sure, but my clients had the nerve to go on and succeed

without him. So the point that Open AI is making is basically Elon Musk had his opportunity. He actually wanted to take it for profit as well, but just because we did it ourselves and became successful after he left, he's now coming back for undue payments, which is also a very very valuable argument on their side. So that's currently two settings of the argument. The tension was pretty palpable. Sam Altman, apparently, according to reports, sat there the entire time with his arms cross. He didn't stay for Elon Musk's specific testament. Instead, leaving behind a recorded video of him making excuses saying, I've got to go work and do A, B, and C. But the president of Open AI, Greg Brockman, did stay for the entire thing and hear Elon Musk out. The spiciest news

is probably going to come later today when Elon Musk himself is going to get grilled by OpenAI's lawyer. Yeah, it's a shame that this isn't being televised or this not recorded. You have to read these accounts of people who are actually there in order to kind of get a peek into what's going on. But before we get into that peak of what happened, maybe we talk about the smoking gun, which is the piece of evidence that actually turned this lawsuit into a trial. And that's Greg Brockman's diary entry, which I thought was really funny. So Greg Bachman, president and co-founder of Open AI, and in a November of 2017, when he was publicly and privately telling Elon that the team remained enthusiastic about the nonprofit structure, he was writing in his personal journal something totally different.

And we actually have the personal journal diar entries. In November 6th, 2017, it says, cannot say that we are committed to the nonprofit. Don't want to say that we're committed. If three months later, we're doing B-Corp, then it was a lie. So he's kind of confessing to the idea that he's aware that it is a lie. and then a few days later, under the heading called Our Plan, Greg Brockman wrote, it would be nice to be making billions of dollars, but we can't see us turning into a for-profit without a very nasty fight. And then there's more. This is the only chance we have to get out from

Elon. What will it take me to do this? One billion dollars. So there's this lot of contemplation that's happening in his redacted diary entries that we see here that leads the court to believe that they were aware of what was going on. They were trying to scheme and plot. against Elon. And no side is right in this court case. And I think that's why it's so compelling is because both sides really do have compelling arguments, right? It's like Elon says this is a corrupt structure that sets a poor precedent for what a charitable organization looks like. And Open AI is saying, well, we basically couldn't exist unless we pivoted. We did everything we could. And now we have this new company that exists that's kind of been a disaster and a mess, but it works. It gets the job done.

It's been a chaotic disaster. So I think the polymarket currently has it. at about 60% chance in Elon's favor, but this is very much an even battle as it stands right now in who we expect to win. Yeah, there is no clear winner, as you said, and that's because both sides are kind of shooting themselves in the foot, right? Like there's three main cracks that I see, right? Okay, so crack number one is what you just mentioned.

So Greg Brockman's diary, there's some implicative evidence that states that they're trying to go behind Elon's back to not only turn it into a for-profit against the original vision of the company, but also turn a profit for Sam Ommon and Greg Rockman themselves, whilst ousting Elon Musk, the guy that funded them. That sounds very convincing enough,

except there is an email and tweet from Elon Musk three years later, where he basically admits to him saying, yeah, I wanted to turn it into a for-profit first, and the idea was to put it under Tesla's ownership, therefore defeating the whole intentional purpose that he was aligned with this non-profit vision. So that's correct number one. crack number two is the Statue of Limitations tweet, where he basically goes,

OpenAIA is essentially captured by Microsoft, right? So the legal significance of this is this was tweeted in 2020, and it wasn't until four years later that Elon filed this lawsuit against Sam Altman and Open AI, which suggests that there was a time delta where he had a reason to sue them early on because they were going very much for a for-profit, hence Microsoft investing $13 billion in them, but decided to wait until three years later when Open AIA was much, much, much more successful, profitable and the number one leading AI startup, to them be like, hmm, I'm going to seek reparations now. It kind of defeats his whole argument. And crack number three is the 2017 Tesla merger email that I mentioned earlier that he tweeted about in 2021, but also the email came out in evidence through this court proceedings in 2017, proving that he wanted to merge it within Tesla, indicating the same kind of for-profit nature that Samoam and Greg Rockland are going after.

So Elon Musk is kind of fighting himself here, especially as he takes the stand and starts providing all these different bits of evidence, which can just be refuted by emails and posts that he made himself. Well, it was funny. I mean, the judge threatened a gag order yesterday because he had to sit both of them down and say, you guys cannot be insulting each other publicly while this court is going on. And it's really funny because they can't help themselves. Like the arena in which they play in is where they troll each other. And the judge made it very clear. that unless you guys stop bullying each other, Elon calling Sam scam Altman and things of that nature, I'm going to forcibly make you stop tweeting. So please stop. Stop. Oh, that's so good. Scam Altman is pretty good. But we have some updates from inside the court. I mean, unfortunately, again, there's no cameras, but there are a few reporters that were in there. They were kind of live posting as we were going throughout the course of the day. A few highlights from Elon being on

the stand. He did say, and I quote, AI could kill us. Looting a charity will destroy charitable giving, along with some other pretty strong wording, no one should be allowed to steal a charity. And it makes sense. I think we're really in for fireworks because we got the witness list also. And the witness list is pretty good. So we have Elon and Sam, of course. We have Greg Brockman. And then we have Satya Nadela because, for those that don't know, Satya Nadela is CEO of Microsoft.

And Microsoft is involved in this. Microsoft CTO sent an email to Satya saying something. to the likes that they are aware of Open AI and Elon's private holdings not being happy about the changes that were happening. And that singular email got him dragged into this court case. So we're going to be seeing Satyne Della. We are going to be seeing Ilya Satskever. Illia, as everyone knows, he is the founder of Safe Super Intelligence now. He is also one of the co-founders of OpenAI. And the person who Elon most fought over to join, Mira Muradi is listed here. She is the co-founder of Thinking Machines. And she is another co-founder from Open AI.

And then we have Chavon Zillis, who is a funny one. Chivon, I think, has four children with Elon, currently works at Neurrelink, but she was on, I believe, some sort of board of directors for Open AI. And I assume there's some conflict of interest there. So it is a all-star cast. We will be hearing all of these as we go. It's going to be really exciting as we go along this court case to see how these things unfold. I think the precedent that Elon is fighting for is interesting.

We were talking about this before we started recording, which is, is this trial as major as it's being made out to be. And the point is, this doesn't or won't have any recurring effect on AI as an industry, but it will affect the philanthropic nature of America as a whole, which is the argument that Elon is making. He's saying, basically, if you allow companies to go from a non-profit into a for-profit and then become the most valuable private startup in the entire world valued currently, their secondaries are trading, secondaries of open AI shares are trading for over a trillion dollars, then you're kind of cheating the system because, you know, there are various tax benefits.

Elon, sorry, Sam Altman technically doesn't own any of Open AI, but he is getting access via side venture funds, which he set up earlier on, which he completely owns, but doesn't really admit or speak to. So there's a lot of evasion going on here. Elon's making the point that if you allow this to happen, then it's the end of philanthropy in America. But to me, it also sounds like it's an ego-driven thing, right? He doesn't like the fact that he started the company that is now way ahead of XAI and is arguably the number one AI lab in the entire world.

And he wants some kind of benefit from that for his ego. So I don't really know whether Elon and Sam should be fighting over this. I think like once this is done, it should just be settled. Open Air was always meant to be a full profit. And I think if there wasn't such a rivalry between these two key figures, this wouldn't even be a new story in itself. Yeah, that's probably right. I think because of the rivalry, this becomes a new story. And the smoking gun that Elon is using is these diary entries and the fact that it's a poor precedent. I don't think people will be

rushing to emulate this precedent of how to set up the company just because of how much pain and suffering has caused Open AI. I mean, if you remember Sam Alman got ousted temporarily, there was a lot of contention around his pay packages and how he gets actual equity. He famously claimed that he has a zero percent equity stake in Open AI. It seems like it's only caused them headaches and nightmares. they choose to do it again or if any other company were to try to do this, they certainly would not take this route. But maybe we could talk about what Elon actually stands to win if he does get the win or what happens if he wins versus what happens if Sam wins. So in the worst case scenario, it's kind of, I guess in the worst case scenario for Open AI, it's pretty bleak.

Elon is looking for $134 billion, which is quite a bit. He would also want the conversion to be unwound. So OpenAI would turn into a nonprofit again. Sam Altman and Greg Brockman both would be out. The IPO, that is rumored to happen later this year, early next year. That's off the table. That's not coming until at least 2028 or later if it does. Microsoft's $13 billion in equity is in play. That can mess up Microsoft. And it could cause a lot of really messed up downstream effects that might actually stand to benefit X-AI, SpaceX. That whole SpaceX, SpaceX. meta conglomerate thing because now one of their largest competitors is kind of out of the game. It would be really detrimental to the state of AI as it relates to open AI. So that's kind of

the bleak outlook. The reality is we're not going to get that worst case scenario. It's going to be something much better if he does win. But there is a lot at stake here. On the minute chance of that happens, it's not just the end of AI. It's the end of the entire economy and stock market that is propped up by the leading AI Lab OpenAI and that kind of like blue, if you want to call it a bubble, this bubble up in the first place. When I look at this, right,

the biggest smoking gun, for Elon at least, is that there is no smoking gun. His argument is kind of like, okay, you have a few good points, but there isn't like a zinger that shuts Sam Orton down. And therefore,

the probability of all of this being unwound is minute. Elon Musk might at best get the minimum amount of money that he put into open air at the start, which was $44 million. He promised up to a billion dollars, but only ended up investing $44 million. But he was lauding that as a reason why open air should pay him, $134 billion. And obviously there's a major equity stake differential between that. So I think Elon Musk probably won't come out winning from this, but we'll see from the trials proceeding today in over the next couple of weeks and we will keep you up to date on that.

You had a fun example that you wanted to share, Josh, which was this clip from Peter Thiel commenting on the entire thing, where he basically makes the point that whichever person I talked to last, I find the most convincing. Can you unpack this for us? Yeah, he said it so well where, I mean, he's personally friends with Elon and Sam Almond, or at least in communications with them.

And he was describing what it's like to talk to them about this court case. And when he speaks to Elon, it becomes very clear Elon's case and it makes a lot of sense where if a company is able to start as a nonprofit and then roll all of that into a for-profit entity, it breaks what a charitable model looks like. And it kind of destroys and crumbles the charitable infrastructure that we have in America. And then he was describing leaving that and feeling like, okay, yeah, this is a pretty signed argument. This makes sense. And then going over to Sam Altman, having a conversation with him, and Sam's saying, well, there's actually no way we ever could have made this work if we stayed a nonprofit.

We had no choice but to switch over to a for-profit, and we did everything in our power to make it as, I guess, egalitarian as possible. Both of those are pretty compelling arguments, and I think that's why everyone's kind of split on where this is going to end up and why you're kind of left supporting whoever you last spoke to because both arguments are incredibly strong and both of these things really do matter, right? Like, we want open ad to exist and had they never pivoted, they wouldn't have existed. And that's probably a worse off future. But we also don't want them to be able to take advantage and create a precedence for a loophole that now a lot of other AI companies could possibly come in and do. So I just found to be a really interesting take from someone whose ideas I kind of trust and respect in Peter Thiel. And just to the point that no one really knows. And I think the judge has a really tough case cut out for him. This is kind of an amazing PR campaign for Sam Olman and Open AI, right?

I think Sam himself has been branded as this kind of like evil villainous character for a long, long time now. And that has been boosted by Elon Musk in large part. And to have a court proceeding come out and basically say, hey, Elon basically asked for the same thing back in 2017, kind of like portray Sam as like a better faith actor. So it's really good PR for him. The other thing I was thinking about is the strongest argument that opens up. has for becoming or having become a for-profit was made by Elon Musk himself, the guy that is fighting against it. So, like, he would have to effectively, I don't know, sue himself if he wants to make the exact argument. This is why I think this entire thing is ridiculous. So I just think this is a

hot mess. I think the brothers need to stop fighting and band together and just get on with this. This is a positive sum game. You see kind of like a similar rivalry between Open AI and Anthropic in the fact that they're each putting up models that are leapfrogging each other every couple of weeks now at this point, I think it almost just needs to put this down, put the money and his focus on XAI, and put out a better GROP model because I want GROP to get back into the race at this point. Yeah, me too. I hope it's not too distracting, but I do love the fact that we will have entertainment guaranteed.

And I guess we could also entertain what happens if Sam Altman wins in the best case scenario for Open AI, which is, I mean, that IPO is a certainty. And that IPO is going to be at over a trillion dollars, right? You were just telling me before recording that OpenAI has kind of postponed their current fundraising round to increase the valuation prior to raising more money. So the company is growing incredibly quickly. There will be nothing that slows them down. Microsoft is going to be locked in with no legal overhead or ramifications. Altman is going to maintain his role as CEO of OpenAI and XAI is going to just kind of continue to compete and try it to catch up. But it seems

like there's a lot more downside for Sam than there is upside, and there is a lot more upside for Elon than there is downside. So it's a little unbalanced when it comes to the outcomes here. Yeah, totally. But that is everything that is happening over this multi-week culmination of this trial. Remember, this is like pretty much at this point a decade's worth in the making this rivalry. So it'll be good to finally tie a bow on this. We'll be covering, all the exciting news that comes out of this. Again, there is a current Elon taking the witness as we speak, as you all have seen to this, actually it probably would have already happened,

where Open Air's lawyer is basically grilling him on his entire argument, and there's going to be some spicy taste that come out from that. But rest assured, we will be the first podcast to cover it in great detail and give our own insight. He has an important question. Yes. Who you got? Who's winning this? I am the biggest Elon fan, but Sam's got this.

Sam's going to win this. At minimum, I think Elon's going to get his $44 million that he originally invested in Open AI back with zero interest. But Sam's got this. It's a win for him. That seems right. I can't imagine anything close to the worst case scenario for Open AI happening. I assume it's probably the entire thing probably fizzles out into a whole nothing burger where there's just like not much that changes. and Elon just like gets his day in the spotlight.

But I don't know, we'll be following it closely. We will keep you posted as this trial goes along. But now you're up to date on all things. If you are looking for current up-to-date status, you might want to tune in today because it's going to get a little spicy. But yeah, thank you guys so much for watching as always. And we will see you guys in the next episode. See you guys.