The Musk v. Altman trial is underway, and which means reveals, or the evidence to be offered in courtroom, are being revealed piece by piece. So far, e mail exchanges, photographs, and company paperwork are circulating from the earliest days of OpenAI — and from earlier than the AI lab even had a reputation. Some high-level takeaways: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang gave OpenAI an in-demand supercomputer, Musk largely drafted OpenAI’s mission and closely influenced its early construction, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appeared to need to lean closely on Y Combinator for early assist for OpenAI, OpenAI president Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever apprehensive about Musk’s stage of management over the firm, and Musk highlighted the significance of a nonprofit with a mission of broadly helpful AI.
Musk’s buzzy lawsuit, which started its jury trial on Monday in a federal courtroom in California, names Altman, Brockman, and OpenAI investor Microsoft as defendants. The claims range towards every occasion and have included breaching OpenAI’s charitable belief, fraud, and unjust enrichment. But finally, Musk’s lawsuit boils down as to whether or not OpenAI deviated from its founding mission of guaranteeing that synthetic normal intelligence — an typically vaguely outlined time period that denotes AI programs that equal or surpass human intelligence — advantages all of humanity. It’s the newest in a yearslong string of authorized actions towards OpenAI and its executives by Musk, who cofounded the AI lab alongside Altman and Brockman and was an early investor. (Musk additionally owns xAI, an AI lab that instantly competes with OpenAI, and is owned by dad or mum firm SpaceX.)
Former OpenAI staff and other people near each firms have been watching this specific lawsuit with an in depth eye, since the end result of a jury trial may have affected how OpenAI runs its enterprise and controls its rapidly advancing expertise. Plus, OpenAI and SpaceX are each reportedly racing to go public this yr, so they’re extra in the public eye than ever.
The lawsuit discovery course of had already unearthed numerous eyebrow-raising communications between AI business executives, from emails between Altman and Sutskever to entries from Brockman’s personal diary. Even texts between Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Musk have been made public. But that was all earlier than the jury trial began — now, there’s much more set to be revealed.
Here’s an exhaustive record of all the reveals which have been made public so far and the largest takeaways from every one. Admittedly, not each merchandise is essentially fascinating, so we’ve flagged the most necessary ones with an asterisk. The Verge will preserve updating the record as extra are added.
Documents launched April 29, 2026
A June 2015 e mail change between Altman and Musk. Altman lays out a five-part plan involving an AI lab with a mission to “create the first general AI and use it for individual empowerment—ie, the distributed version of the future that seems the safest. More generally, safety should be a first-class requirement.”
He means that they begin with seven to 10 folks and increase from there, utilizing an additional Y Combinator constructing situated in Mountain View. Governance-wise, Altman names 5 folks to begin, proposing himself, Musk, Bill Gates, Pierre Omidyar, and Dustin Moskovitz. “The technology would be owned by the foundation and used ‘for the good of the world’, and in cases where it’s not obvious how that should be applied the 5 of us would decide,” Altman writes. He provides that the researchers working at the lab would have “significant financial upside … uncorrelated to what they build, which should eliminate some of the conflict,” and suggests paying them a “competitive salary” and awarding them fairness in Y Combinator. He additionally says they need to get somebody to “run the team” however that that individual “probably shouldn’t be on the governance board.”
Altman goes on to ask Musk whether or not he’ll be concerned in the AI lab in addition to governance, probably coming by as soon as a month to speak about progress or not less than being publicly supportive to assist with recruiting. As a mannequin, he names Peter Thiel’s “part-time partner” involvement at Y Combinator.
Finally, Altman mentions a “regulation letter,” seeming to suggest that the AI lab was going to put in writing a letter calling for AI regulation. He says he’s joyful to depart Musk off as a public signatory.
Musk replies, “Agree on all.”
In an October 2015 e mail change between Altman and Musk, Altman suggests beginning with a $100 million dedication by Musk and asks if he may donate an extra $30 million over the subsequent 5 years. He says Bill Gates isn’t but dedicated to donating however that he hopes to “have him locked down next week,” including that he believes Mark Zuckerberg probably received’t come by means of as a consequence of his personal AI lab, Facebook AI Research (FAIR). He additionally means that he and Musk begin as the first two members of the Safety Board with the potential so as to add three different members over the following yr, calling it the “‘second key’ for releasing anything that could be dangerous.”
Musk responds, “Let’s discuss governance. This is critical. I don’t want to fund something that goes in what turns out to be the wrong direction.”
In a November 2015 e mail change between Musk and Altman, the two focus on plans for the forthcoming AI lab. Musk begins off by recounting a “great call with Greg [Brockman]” and saying he’s “super impressed with everyone so far,” calling it a “great team.” He suggests creating the lab as an “independent, pure play 501c3, but with a crystal clear focus on the positive advent of strong AI distributed widely to humanity.” He says the firm would “still aim to bring in revenue in excess of costs at some point, but positive net revenue would just flow to cash reserves.”
With regard to compensation for workers, Musk suggests a money wage and sure bonuses. He says that if Altman is amenable, staff may convert money to inventory in Y Combinator, including that it’s nice in the event that they’d reasonably convert some or all to SpaceX inventory as an alternative. (“I can pretty much do what I want on the SpaceX side, as it is private (thank goodness),” Musk writes.) He additionally affords “insane amounts of real world sensor data” from Tesla for the AI lab to make use of, mentioning that the quantity of knowledge is “several orders of magnitude greater than any other company.”
Musk’s first stab at a reputation for the AI lab is “Freemind,” as he says it “conveys the sense that we are trying to create digital intelligence that will be freely available to all — the opposite of Deepmind’s one-ring-to-rule-them-all approach.” He additionally says he’ll dedicate no matter quantity of his time is beneficial, despite the fact that that might imply much less time allotted to SpaceX and Tesla. “If I really believe that this is potentially the biggest near-term existential threat, then action should follow belief,” he writes. He provides later that, regardless of seemingly making an attempt to be basically a silent accomplice, he has to “bite the bullet on admitting real involvement. This will come as a shocker to many, but so be it. Can’t be lukewarm about this.”
Altman suggests the AI lab share a constructing with Y Combinator and use the incubator’s authorized group to assist get it began. He additionally suggests the names “Axon” or one thing associated to famed laptop scientist and mathematician Alan Turing.
Musk writes, “Something Turing-related that doesn’t sound too ominous might be good. Want to avoid the Turing Test association though, as that sounds too much like we are replacing humans.”
A December 2015 e mail change between Altman and Musk drafts the opening paragraphs of OpenAI’s mission and press launch. Musk says the “whole point of this release is to attract top talent.” The two travel on wording, and the remaining product finally ends up not straying an excessive amount of from Musk’s unique draft.
Musk writes in his draft that “the outcome of this venture is uncertain and the pay is low compared to what others will offer, but we believe the goal and the structure are right.” Altman writes in his draft that “because we don’t have any financial obligations, we can focus on the maximal positive human impact and disseminating AI technology as broadly as possible.”
OpenAI’s official articles of incorporation, filed December eighth, 2015. The doc states that OpenAI “shall be a nonprofit corporation organized exclusively for charitable purposes” and that its goal is “to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity, including by conducting and/or funding artificial intelligence research. The corporation may also research and/or otherwise support efforts to safely develop and distribute such technology and its associated benefits, including analyzing the societal impacts of the technology and supporting related educational, economic, and safety policy research and initiatives.”
The doc continues, “The resulting technology will benefit the public and the corporation will seek to distribute it for the public benefit when applicable. The corporation is not organized for the private gain of any person.”
An April 2016 e mail change between Musk and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Musk asks Huang if the OpenAI group should purchase an early unit of a supercomputer, ensuring to focus on that “OpenAI is unaffiliated with Tesla. It is a non-profit funded by me and a few others with the goal of developing safe AGI (and hopefully not paving the road to hell with good intentions).”
Huang responds that he “will make sure OpenAI gets one of the first ones.”
A photograph of Jensen Huang ostensibly dropping off stated laptop. Elon Musk stands close by.
On the wall behind him is a prolonged quote typically attributed to US Navy Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, which is echoed in a 2013 weblog submit by Altman. (The Verge couldn’t instantly affirm the complete quote was stated by Rickover; in a US Navy submit attributed to the admiral, solely a part of the quote seems: “Man has a large capacity for effort. But it is so much greater than we think it is, that few ever reach this capacity.”)
In an August 2017 e mail change between Musk and Shivon Zilis, Musk’s chief of employees who ultimately sat on OpenAI’s board, and with whom Musk would ultimately share a number of kids. Zilis writes a recap of her assembly with Brockman and Sutskever, laying out seven unanswered questions. She says Brockman and Sutskever are nice with Musk spending much less time on the firm and having much less management, or spending extra time and having extra management, however not much less time and extra management. They additionally hope to lift considerably greater than $100 million to begin, as they fear the knowledge heart they want alone would value that a lot. She says Brockman is comparatively set on an equal fairness break up. They additionally, she writes, fear about Musk’s management over the firm. In her notes recapping their considerations, Zilis writes, “Is the requirement for absolute control? They wonder if there is a scenario where there could be some sort of creative overrule position if literally everyone else disagreed on direction.”
The largest level of stress, Zilis writes, appears to be on Musk’s length of management over the firm, regardless of his possession stake. “*The* non-negotiable seems to be an ironclad agreement to not have any one person have absolute control of AGI if it’s created. Satisfying this means a situation where, regardless of what happens to the three of them [Greg, Ilya, and Sam], it’s guaranteed that power over the company is distributed after the 2-3 year initial period … An ironclad 2-3yr minority control agreement, regardless of the fates of Greg / Sam / Ilya.”
Musk responds, “This is very annoying. Please encourage them to go start a company. I’ve had enough.”
A September 2017 e mail to Musk from Jared Birchall, an adviser to Musk and supervisor of his household workplace. He attaches a “more user friendly version of the cap table that Ilya and Greg are proposing.”
In it, Musk is mirrored as having 51.20 % fairness, with Altman, Sutskever, and Brockman every having 11.01 %. There’s additionally reserved fairness for workers, and the cap desk denotes every preliminary worker’s identify or nickname adopted by a proposed quantity of fairness.
Documents launched April 30, 2026
A November 2015 e mail change between Musk and Altman, in which Altman references what appears to be one among the first names and buildings thought-about for the AI lab — Y Combinator AI.
Altman writes that the “plan is to have you, me, and Ilya on the Board of Directors for YC AI, which will be a Delaware non-profit,” including, “We will write into the bylaws that any technology that potentially compromises the safety of humanity has to get consent of the Board to be released, and we will reference this in the researchers’ employment contracts.”
Musk disagrees in his response: “I think this should be independent from (but supported by) YC, not what sounds like a subsidiary. Also, the structure doesn’t seem optimal. In particular, the YC stock along with a salary from the nonprofit muddies the alignment of incentives. Probably better to have a standard C corp with a parallel nonprofit.”
In a December 2016 e mail change between Musk and his Neuralink associates, he brings up his considerations about beating Google Deepmind once more, writing, “Deepmind is moving very fast. I am concerned that OpenAI is not on a path to catch up. Setting it up as a non-profit might, in hindsight, have been the wrong move. Sense of urgency is not as high.”
In June 2017, Musk writes an e mail saying he employed Andrej Karpathy away from OpenAI to be director of Tesla Vision, saying, “The OpenAI guys are gonna want to kill me, but it had to be done…”
In July 2017, Musk writes in an e mail to Sutskever and Brockman that China “will do whatever it takes to obtain what we develop. Maybe another reason to change course.” Brockman says he agrees, and that the path forward ought to be an “AI research non-profit (through end of 2017), AI research and hardware for-profit (starting 2018), [and] government project (when: ??).”
As a token of appreciation for his or her work at OpenAI, Musk affords to present Sutskever, Brockman, and others on the group Tesla Model 3 vehicles which can be “not available to the public.”
Musk asks in August 2017 if Altman, Sutskever, and Brockman can meet to debate the “next step” for OpenAI — and volunteers “the haunted mansion [he] just bought near SF,” though it’s “kinda crazy and weird and will have party carnage.”
An e mail change between Musk and Birchall, his cash supervisor, later in August 2017. Birchall writes that for now, he’s “held off” on giving OpenAI Musk’s typical quarterly $5 million donation and asks if he ought to proceed holding off. Musk responds affirmatively.
A September 2017 e mail change between Musk, Brockman, and Sutskever, with Sutskever suggesting that Musk have three board seats and Brockman, Sutskever, and Altman every have one. Musk responds that he believes he ought to have the proper to nominate 4 board seats and later compliments the three others.
Musk writes, “I would not expect to appoint [the four board seats] immediately, but, like I said I would unequivocally have initial control of the company, but this will change quickly. The rough target would be to get to a 12 person board (probably more like 16 if this board really ends up deciding the fate of the world) where each board member has a deep understanding of technology, at least a basic understanding of AI and strong & sensible morals.”
A September 2017 e mail change between Brockman and Musk, with Altman and Sutskever CC’d. Brockman and Sutskever suggest a cap desk for Musk’s approval, with Brockman noting that himself and Altman are in a position to make investments much more than Sutskever, however Sutskever can make investments greater than $2.5 million if he takes a mortgage from Altman and/or Brockman securitized by inventory he owns.
Musk replies, “Guys, you are pushing too hard here. I’m not ok with this.”
A September 2017 textual content message from Musk to Zilis and others. Musk writes, “We should get going on creating the OpenAI B Corp, as I promised Greg and Ilya. Let’s discuss this eve. Still no word from Sam Altman btw.”
A September 2017 e mail change between Altman, Musk, Zilis, Brockman, Sutskever, and Musk’s chief of employees Sam Teller. It paints an image of a two-sided negotiation with peak stress, with Musk and Altman basically on one aspect and Brockman and Sutskever on the different.
To Elon, Brockman and Sutskever write, “Elon: We really want to work with you … Our desire to work with you is so great that we are happy to give up on the equity, personal control, make ourselves easily firable — whatever it takes to work with you.” However, they write they have been involved about Musk’s management over the future expertise OpenAI might put out.
“The current structure provides you with a path where you end up with unilateral absolute control over the AGI,” the two write to Musk. “You stated that you don’t want to control the final AGI, but during this negotiation, you’ve shown to us that absolute control is extremely important to you. As an example, you said that you needed to be CEO of the new company so that everyone will know that you are the one who is in charge, even though you also stated that you hate being CEO and would much rather not be CEO. Thus, we are concerned that as the company makes genuine progress towards AGI, you will choose to retain your absolute control of the company despite current intent to the contrary. We disagree with your statement that our ability to leave is our greatest power, because once the company is actually on track to AGI, the company will be much more important than any individual.”
The two additionally contact on the group’s often-mentioned fears about Deepmind’s Demis Hassabis. To Musk, they write, “The goal of OpenAl is to make the future good and to avoid an AGI dictatorship. You are concerned that Demis could create an AGI dictatorship. So do we. So it is a bad idea to create a structure where you could become a dictator if you chose to, especially given that we can create some other structure that avoids this possibility.”
Brockman and Sutskever have totally different considerations for Altman himself, although.
In the a part of the message directed at Altman, they write, “We haven’t been able to fully trust your judgements throughout this process, because we don’t understand your cost function. We don’t understand why the CEO title is so important to you. Your stated reasons have changed, and it’s hard to really understand what’s driving it.” Separately, they query a few of Altman’s motivations, asking him, “Is AGI truly your primary motivation? How does it connect to your political goals? How has your thought process changed over time?”
Altman responded to the e mail that he “remain[ed] enthusiastic about the non-profit structure!”
A September 2017 response from Musk to the above considerations detailed by Brockman and Sutskever. Musk writes, “Guys, I’ve had enough. This is the final straw. Either go do something on your own or continue with OpenAl as a nonprofit. I will no longer fund OpenAl until you have made a firm commitment to stay or I’m just being a fool who is essentially providing free funding for you to create a startup. Discussions are over.”
A September 2017 e mail change between Zilis and Musk. Zilis recounts a few of Altman’s emotions, like the concept that Altman “lost a lot of trust” for Brockman and Sutskever throughout the negotiations, feeling that their messaging was “inconsistent” and “childish at times.” She additionally says Altman was planning to take a 10-day hiatus from OpenAI to consider how a lot he trusted Brockman and Sutskever and the way a lot he needed to work with them.
She additionally says Altman talked about that Holden Karnofsky — a distinguished tech government and chief in efficient altruism, who now works at Anthropic and is married to Anthropic co-founder Daniela Amodei — was “irked by the move to for-profit and potentially offered [a] more substantial amount of money if OpenAI stayed a non-profit.”
Zilis additionally says that Altman is “great with keeping the non-profit” and that although Brockman and Sutskever are additionally amenable to persevering with with the non-profit construction, “they know they would need to provide a guarantee that they won’t go off doing something else to make it work.”
An October 2017 e mail from Musk to his Neuralink co-founder Ben Rapoport. Musk writes, “Hire independently or directly from OpenAI. I have no problem if you pitch people at Open Al to work at Neuralink.”
On New Year’s Day in 2018, Sutskever writes a word of gratitude to Musk, cc’ing Brockman, calling Musk the “most overwhelmingly competent person in the world” and including that he’s grateful Musk pushed OpenAI to construct customized {hardware}.
Brockman sends an analogous message as Sutskever did to Musk on New Year’s Day 2018, writing that “it’s an honor to work alongside you.”
In a January 2018 e mail change between Musk, Altman, Brockman, and Sutskever, with Zilis CC’ed, Musk writes of his considerations about Google Deepmind’s development in AI. He writes, “OpenAl is on a path of certain failure relative to Google. There obviously needs to be immediate and dramatic action or everyone except for Google will be consigned to irrelevance. I have considered the ICO approach and will not support it. In my opinion, that would simply result in a massive loss of credibility for OpenAl and everyone associated with the ICO. If something seems too good to be true, it is. This was, in my opinion, an unwise diversion.”
Musk continues, “The only paths I can think of are a major expansion of OpenAl and a major expansion of Tesla Al. Perhaps both simultaneously. The former would require a major increase in funds donated and highly credible people joining our board. The current board situation is very weak … To be clear, I have a lot of respect for your abilities and accomplishments, but I am not happy with how things have been managed. That is why I have had trouble engaging with OpenAl in recent months. Either we fix things and my engagement increases a lot or we don’t and I will drop to near zero and publicly reduce my association. I will not be in a situation where the perception of my influence and time doesn’t match the reality.”
When Musk forwards the back-and-forth to Andrej Karpathy, Karpathy responds in assist of Musk’s ideas, writing, “Working at the cutting edge of AI is unfortunately expensive … It seems to me that OpenAl today is burning cash and that the funding model cannot reach the scale to seriously compete with Google (an 800B company). If you can’t seriously compete but continue to do research in open, you might in fact be making things worse and helping them out ‘for free,’ because any advances are fairly easy for them to copy and immediately incorporate, at scale.”
Karpathy continues, “A for-profit pivot might create a more sustainable revenue stream over time and would, with the current team, likely bring in a lot of investment. However, building out a product from scratch would steal focus from Al research, it would take a long time and it’s unclear if a company could ‘catch up’ to Google scale, and the investors might exert too much pressure in the wrong directions.”
Karpathy says the “most promising option” he can consider “would be for OpenAl to attach to Tesla as its cash cow. I believe attachments to other large suspects (e.g. Apple? Amazon?) would fail due to an incompatible company DNA.”
He then goes on to element what a Tesla-OpenAI merge would seem like. “Using a rocket analogy, Tesla already built the ‘first stage’ of the rocket with the whole supply chain of Model 3 and its onboard computer and a persistent internet connection. The ‘second stage’ would be a full self driving solution based on large-scale neural network training, which OpenAl expertise could significantly help accelerate. With a functioning full self-driving solution in ~2-3 years we could sell a lot of cars/trucks. If we do this really well, the transportation industry is large enough that we could increase Tesla’s market cap to high O(~100K), and use that revenue to fund the Al work at the appropriate scale. I cannot see anything else that has the potential to reach sustainable Google-scale capital within a decade.”
Musk forwards the word to Sutskever and Brockman, writing that Karpathy is correct, and that “Tesla is the only path that could even hope to hold a candle to Google. Even then, the probability of being a counterweight to Google is small. It just isn’t zero.”
A February 2018 textual content message dialog between Musk and Zilis, probably simply after Musk advised Altman, Brockman, and Sutskever on a video assembly that he could be departing OpenAI’s board.
Zilis writes, “Do you prefer I stay close and friendly to OpenAl to keep info flowing or begin to disassociate? Trust game is about to get tricky so any guidance for how to do right by you is appreciated.” Musk responded, “Close and friendly, but we are going to actively try to move three or four people from OpenAl to Tesla. More than that will join over time, but we won’t actively recruit them.”
The two focus on who on the group to probably recruit, with Zilis saying that Sutskever was “visibly devastated” after Musk left the video assembly and that there’s “some probability you could get Ilya if you wanted him, but don’t know if you do. He has been a very good spiritual leader.” Musk responds, “There is little chance of OpenAI being a serious force if I focus on Tesla AI.”
Zilis goes on to the touch on the often-brought-up concern of Google’s progress in the AI race and tries to encourage Musk to “slow down” Hassabis, CEO of Google Deepmind. She writes, “There is a very low probability of a good future if someone doesn’t slow Demis down. Slowing him down is the only nonnegotiable net good action I can see. You don’t realize how much you have an ability to influence him directly or otherwise slow him down. I think you know I’m not a malicious person but in this case it feels fundamentally irresponsible to not find a way to slow or alter his path.” Musk responds, “I doubt I could do so in a meaningful way,” and says they’ll converse by telephone about it later that night.
An April 2018 e mail change between Musk and Zilis, with Zilis writing that OpenAI’s first funding spherical will probably be “largely Reid [Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder] money, potentially some corporates.” Zilis additionally writes that Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo is primed to take Musk’s place on OpenAI’s board. (D’Angelo would later be concerned in Altman’s 2023 ouster from his CEO position.)
In a July 2018 e mail to Musk, Zilis updates him on the new funding spherical OpenAI is planning, in addition to a public letter detailing considerations about autonomous weapons that the Future of Life Institute is planning to publish quickly, which Musk had been listed as a signatory on in the previous.
Zilis additionally recounts rumors she’s heard about Google Deepmind’s Hassabis, writing, “Rumor has it that, on top of the folks that secretly converse on Twitter DM because they don’t trust Demis not to spy on their email and gchat, a part of the inner group also meets in a London coffee shop without cell phones to have in person discussions away from him. Heard this from both Altman and another friend.”
An August 2018 e mail from Altman to Musk, in which he consists of OpenAI’s official time period sheet. Altman writes that his “current thought” is that he received’t take any fairness in OpenAI. He goes on to say, “I’m not doing this for the money anyway, and I like the idea of being completely unconflicted and just focused on the best outcome for the world. If it appeared at some point we weren’t going to build AGI but were going to build something valuable, then maybe I’d want equity then.”
The time period sheet consists of a big purple warning field at the prime, stating inside asterisks, “Investing in OpenAI LP (the Partnership) is a high-risk investment. Investors could lose their capital contribution and not see any return. It would be wise to view any investment in OpenAI LP in the spirit of a donation, with the understanding that it may be difficult to know what role money will play in a post-AGI world.” The time period sheet goes on to summarize deliberate income and the way expertise could also be commercialized in the future, in addition to the firm’s fiduciary duties and deliberate fundraising.
“Our duty to these principles and the advancement of our mission takes precedence over any obligation to generate a profit,” the time period sheet states. “We may never make a profit, and we are under no obligation to do so. We are free to re-invest any or all of our cash flow into research and development activities and/or related expenses without any obligation to the Limited Partners … The fiduciary duties of the Nonprofit Board of Directors flow exclusively to the Nonprofit, not to the Limited Partners.”
In November 2018, Musk writes in an e mail to Gabe Newell, co-founder of online game developer Valve, that his involvement in OpenAI is “very limited at this point.”
“I still provide some financial support and get verbal and email updates every few weeks from Sam Altman, but don’t spend time there,” Musk says. “I lost confidence that OpenAl could muster the resources to serve as an effective counterweight to Google/Deepmind and decided to attempt that through Tesla instead. We have cash flow on the order of billions of dollars per year to build hardware that hopefully has at least a dark horse chance to keep Google honest. Probably worth talking about at some point.”
Newell responds that he’s joyful to speak about Tesla and AI when Musk is prepared.
A December 2018 e mail change between Musk and Altman, with others CC’ed. Musk writes of his intensifying fears about Google Deepmind’s Hassabis taking up in the AI race. “My probability assessment of OpenAl being relevant to DeepMind/Google without a dramatic change in execution and resources is 0%. Not 1%. I wish it were otherwise. Even raising several hundred million won’t be enough. This needs billions per year immediately or forget it. Unfortunately, humanity’s future is in the hands of Demis … And they are doing a lot more than this.”
Musk continues, “OpenAl reminds me of Bezos and Blue Origin. They are hopelessly behind SpaceX and getting worse, but the ego of Bezos has him insanely thinking that they are not! I really hope I’m wrong.”
Altman responds to ask if the two can meet to debate growing that proportion. He says he believes OpenAI has a great plan and a great path to realize the capital they want however that they aren’t executing rapidly sufficient. “None of us want to be Bezos here!” he says.
Musk writes, “OpenAl is not a serious counterweight to DeepMind/Google and will only get further behind. It is surprising that this … isn’t obvious to you. In general, always overestimate competitors. You are doing the opposite.”
The two agree to fulfill in Puerto Rico later that week.
A March 2019 e mail change between Altman and Musk, with Zilis and Teller CC’ed. Altman sends a weblog submit detailing OpenAI’s new capped-profit construction to Musk for approval.
Zilis circles again on Altman’s word above in March 2019, highlighting the half the place it says Musk left the board of OpenAI’s nonprofit in February 2018 and that he’s not concerned with OpenAI LP.
Altman texts Musk a few days later in March 2019, reminding him they’re planning to announce OpenAI’s new construction tomorrow and eager to examine the wording about Musk’s previous involvement.
“Also have some mild Demis updates to share,” Altman writes. Musk agrees to speak over the telephone quickly.
In April 2019, Altman texts Musk to ask if he has time to speak about Microsoft’s funding in OpenAI.
In September 2020, Musk publicly responds to a social media submit linking to a VentureBeat article about Microsoft getting the unique license to OpenAI’s GPT-3, writing, “This does seem like the opposite of open. OpenAI is essentially captured by Microsoft.”
An October 2020 check message change between Musk and Altman, with Altman reaching out to say he noticed Musk’s posts on social media the prior week about Microsoft’s unique license to OpenAI’s GPT-3. Altman writes, “I think there’s no way we can hold a candle to DeepMind without many billions of dollars, and MSFT still seems like the best way for us to get that with the least compromise. We gave MSFT a copy of GPT-3 to use in their own products, but we still get to retain autonomy to release our work ourselves (e.g., we can and will continue to provide API access to the most powerful language model in existence to everyone).”
Musk responds, “Yeah, we should talk. I don’t think it’s a winning approach to be (or at least appear to be) hypocritical. At least change the name.”
Musk later hyperlinks to a social media submit saying that one among Musk’s “worst management blunders” was completely licensing GPT-3 to Microsoft. Altman responds saying that OpenAI “finally just got a full time PR person,” name-dropping Apple’s former PR individual Steve Dowling as the new rent, and writing, “I am hopeful we can start getting pr right…” Dowling would later step down from his position, which reported on to Altman, at the starting of 2021.
In a textual content message change between Musk and Altman in late October 2020, Altman asks for recommendation on the subsequent Microsoft funding that OpenAI is contemplating. Musk responds that he can discuss in the subsequent day or two.
An October 2022 article from The Information about OpenAI’s superior talks with Microsoft for added funding.
In October 2022, Musk writes in a textual content message to Altman that he was “disturbed to see OpenAI with a $20B valuation … I provided almost all the seed, A and most of B round funding.” He sends a hyperlink to the above article, including, “This is a bait and switch.”
Altman responds, “I agree this feels bad—we offered you equity when we established the cap profit, which you didn’t want at the time but we are still very happy to do any time you’d like. We saw no alternative, given the amount of capital we needed and needing still to preserve away to ‘give the AGI to humanity’, other than the capped profit structure. Fwiw I personally have no equity and never have. Am trying to navigate tricky tightrope the best I can.” The two agree to speak someday in the coming week.
In March 2023, Musk posts on social media, “I’m still confused as to how a non-profit to which I donated ~ $100M somehow became a $30B market cap for-profit. If this is legal, why doesn’t everyone do it?”
A May 2023 textual content message change between Musk, Altman, Birchall, and Musk lawyer Alex Spiro, in which it’s detailed that Spiro, and probably Birchall, will present as much as OpenAI’s headquarters to evaluate paperwork about OpenAI’s construction and its relationship with Microsoft.
Musk writes, “The point is to understand the relationship between all the companies and the original OpenAI 501c3 … Understanding what rights Microsoft has is important. One of the things I’m concerned about is that they will have de facto control over AGI.”
A March 2026 social media submit by Musk. He writes, “Tesla will be one of the companies to make AGI and probably the first to make it in humanoid/atom-shaping form.”
Exhibit No. 1293
An inventory of “undisputed facts” in Musk v. Altman, et al., together with particulars on timeline and quantities of cash raised and/or donated.
Documents launched May 1, 2026
An settlement establishing a philanthropic account referred to as Musk Charitable at Vanguard Charitable, signed by Elon Musk in July of 2014.
An e mail from Sam Altman to Elon Musk with a listing of ideas for OpenAI, together with a governance construction of 5 folks, together with Musk, Altman, Bill Gates, Pierre Omidyar, and Dustin Moskovitz. “Agree on all,” Musk responds.
A December eleventh, 2015 weblog submit titled “Introducing OpenAI” — additionally obtainable publicly on-line. The submit describes OpenAI as a “non-profit artificial intelligence research company” whose purpose is to achieve “advanced digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by the need to generate financial return.” It lists the founding group, together with Sutskever, Brockman, and Andrej Karpathy (who would later go to Tesla), in addition to the co-chairs, Altman and Musk.
A January 2016 e mail chain. Musk forwards Sutskever and Altman a message from Google’s Hassabis, the place Hassabis objects to Musk, Altman, and others “extolling the virtues of open sourcing AI … I presume you realise that this is not some sort of panacea that will somehow magically solve the AI problem?” Hassabis describes the strategy as “actually very dangerous” and hyperlinks to a Slate Star Codex weblog submit.
Sutskever responds by saying that “as we get closer to building AI, it will make sense to start being less open” and “totally OK to not share the science (even though sharing everything is definitely the right strategy in the short and possibly medium term for recruitment purposes).” Musk replies: “Yup.”
A collection of emails involving Musk, Altman, former OpenAI COO Chris Clark, and Ronald Gong (an affiliate of Musk who’s listed on monetary paperwork). The chain begins in February of 2016, with Altman emailing Musk that “I think we’re going to need more than I was originally budgeting given a) the salaries in the field and b) the speed at which you want to grow.” Musk agrees to contribute $20 million a yr for the subsequent three years, whereas Altman contributes $10 million a yr, and $5 million a yr comes from different donors. Gong and Clark focus on utilizing YC Org as a fiscal sponsor for OpenAI, and Clark attaches the group’s articles of incorporation and different documentation.
Documentation for a collection of grants from the Musk Charitable Fund to OpenAI, together with a mid-2016 grant of $5 million to YC Org, directed towards the “OpenAI Artificial Intelligence Research Program”; a $4.5 million grant in August of 2016; and a collection of month-to-month $175,000 lease funds in 2017, amongst others.
A letter from Chris Clark (listed as the treasurer of YC Org) acknowledging a $500,000 donation from Musk in May of 2016.
A May 2016 change between Brockman and Musk. Brockman writes that “Google’s policy people want to speak with me,” apparently as a result of they’re afraid they’ll “build a public narrative that it’s wrong to have any closed-source AI.” Brockman says he plans to say there’s no purpose to try this. ”We don’t have an issue with folks conserving issues proprietary — it’s nice to become profitable off these things, and we might even generate income ourselves someday,” he says. “What, that’s really interesting. Who called from Google?” Musk asks.
A June 2016 change between Elon Musk and his fixer, Jared Birchall, discussing a lease of the Pioneer Building in San Francisco (which housed OpenAI till 2024 and xAI after that). Birchall mentions {that a} lease has been finalized and is awaiting Sam Altman’s signature, and Musk objects: “Since I’m personally on the hook, this should be viewed as a Musk Foundation building, in which we will house OpenAI, Neuralink, and maybe some SpaceX or Tesla people. I don’t want Sam on the lease.” Birchall says he’ll direct Altman’s identify to be faraway from the lease.
A June 2016 e mail chain involving Jared Birchall and two associates of Bridgeton Holdings, Atit Jariwala, and Bourke Lee. The messages negotiate leasing the Pioneer Building and finish with directions for making the first month-to-month lease cost of round $142,000.
A June 2016 e mail change between Altman, Birchall, and Clark about financing the Pioneer Building lease. Clark sends Birchall a Tenancy at Will settlement signed by Altman, hooked up to the e mail.
A July 1st e mail from Birchall to Musk with the executed lease to the Pioneer Building, together with the lease. Birchall notes that the constructing proprietor will “facilitate a site inspection as soon as we’d like.”
A July 2016 e mail chain between Musk and Birchall. Birchall sends Musk particulars about the quarterly donations and month-to-month hire funds for OpenAI, plus a request from Clark, who “asked me about using the extra space in the building for some of the Y Combinator companies.” Musk’s response mentions that “I have had very little bandwidth to think about the company and am a little worried that it is being managed as an extension of Y Combinator” and says he’d additionally like to make use of a part of the constructing for Neuralink, “so no YC stuff.”
Birchall then says there was an issue with the first quarterly contribution: “because they didn’t have an entity in place to even make a contribution we didn’t pay,” and in June they started utilizing one other nonprofit (presumably YC Org) as a conduit. “I’m not sure why they have taken so long to apply,” Birchall complains. “So I haven’t sent anything to OpenAI? That’s a really big deal. My credibility is at stake here,” Musk writes. Birchall confirms the funds have been despatched — simply channeled by means of a brief 501(c)(3). “Good,” Musk solutions.
An August 2016 e mail change between Musk and Altman. Altman tells Musk he’s negotiated a $50 million compute donation from OpenAI over the subsequent 3 years and asks if there’s any purpose to care about switching from Amazon. “I’m ok with this only if they don’t use it in marketing. I would also like to see the exact terms and conditions. Gifts are only as good as the T&C,” Musk writes. “I think Jeff [Bezos] is a bit of a tool and Satya [Nadella] is not, so I slightly prefer Microsoft, but I hate their marketing dept.”
Altman writes that “Amazon started really dicking us around on the T+C, especially on marketing commits. And their offering wasn’t that good technically anyway.” Musk says that “I will call Satya if we get to decent terms” and says that Microsoft can all the time level folks to “a simple text blog expressing appreciation of Microsoft’s donation on our website.”
A collection of emails between October and November of 2016 involving Birchall; Gong; Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management group director Matilda Simon-Ferrigno; and two folks from Gong’s firm myCFO, Teresa Holland and Paula Lo. Birchall arranges transferring shares from the Musk Foundation to finance OpenAI.
OpenAI’s 2016 tax returns as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. It lists 52 staff and round $13 million in complete income, largely from contributions and grants. It names accomplishments together with establishing a analysis group, launching the OpenAI Gym Beta, publishing “nearly half a dozen comprehensive research papers,” holding a convention, and constructing a security group.
The Musk Foundation’s 2016 Return of Private Foundation tax paperwork, displaying a complete of round $47.8 million in contributions, items, and grants.
A March 2017 letter from Chris Clark to Elon Musk, acknowledging a present of $5 million to OpenAI through YC Org.
A June 2017 letter from Chris Clark to Elon Musk, acknowledging a present of $5 million to OpenAI through YC Org.
A June 2017 Fidelity charitable funding advisor program software for the Musk Foundation Charitable Fund.
Emails between Birchall, Clark, and UBS wealth administration affiliate Leeder Hsu in July of 2017. Birchall directs a grant of $250,000 to YC Org for a Universal Basic Income research.
A July 2017 e mail chain involving Brockman, Musk, Sutskever, and Birchall. Musk sends a hyperlink to a New York Times story about Chinese AI with the remark, “They will do whatever it takes to obtain what we develop. Maybe another reason to change course.” Brockman suggests a path of an AI analysis nonprofit by means of 2017, “AI research + hardware for-profit” beginning 2018, and “Government project (when: ??).” Musk then says that “in appreciation for what you’ve done to get OpenAI to where it is today,” he’d like to supply some OpenAI founding members Tesla Founder Series Model 3 vehicles. Birchall says he’ll attain out with particulars about the vehicles.
An August 2017 e mail dialog between Zilis and Birchall about submitting for a for-profit department of OpenAI. “Elon wants to have control to prevent this from going squirrely,” Zilis says. She lists “unknowns,” together with management of the new entity — ”Greg 100% doesn’t need to run it.” Birchall sends affirmation of how a lot Musk gave to OpenAI in 2016 and 2017: $15.4 million and $16 million, respectively.
OpenAI, Inc.’s certificates of incorporation on September fifteenth, 2017, as a public profit company.
OpenAI’s 2017 tax returns, additionally as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. It lists round $33 million in income (largely from contributions and grants, once more) and 99 staff. It notes that in 2017, it demonstrated that “reinforcement learning algorithms could be scaled to beat the world’s best humans at a restricted version of an advanced, multiplayer game called Dota 2.”
A duplicate of the Vanguard Charitable Policies and Guidelines, 2014 to 2017.
Documentation for a collection of 2017-2020 donations from Musk to OpenAI, composed of month-to-month “general support” funds that probably embody the Pioneer Building lease — which Musk stated constituted his foremost type of assist in the later years of OpenAI.
A January 2018 letter from Clark to Musk acknowledging a present of 4 Tesla sedans with a complete worth of round $250,000.
The OpenAI Charter from April ninth, 2018. It outlines “the principles we use to execute on OpenAI’s mission,” together with “broadly distributed benefits,” “long-term safety,” and “technical leadership.”
An August thirty first, 2018 e mail from Altman to Musk with a for-profit Limited Partnership time period sheet hooked up. “Please see attached, look forward to feedback,” Altman says. He says that “my current thought is that I won’t take any equity,” since he likes the concept of “being completely unconflicted,” however says that if OpenAI appeared unlikely to construct AGI however “were going to build something valuable, then maybe I’d want equity then.” At the begin of the time period sheet is a field marked “Important warning,” saying that the partnership is a “high-risk investment” and any funding ought to be “in the spirit of a donation.”
An August thirty first, 2018 e mail from Zilis to Birchall, forwarding Altman’s e mail. Birchall responds: “Pretty plain vanilla for-profit structure. So kinda hard to push a narrative that doesn’t involve investors being very focused on ROI. I’m a super fan of capitalism and making tons of money doing great things, but not sure if this correlates with the whole ‘noble cause for humanity, not doing it to make money’ narrative.”
A July 2020 e mail from Clark to Birchall confirming that OpenAI’s for-profit entity will take over hire funds and suggesting a remaining one-time donation for safety prices and “anticipated landlord project passthrough” of $570,000. “We certainly understand if you’d prefer to just stop everything now,” Clark says, telling Birchall to “do whatever you feel is most fair.”
A November 2018 textual content message chain between Birchall and Greg Smithies, then Neuralink and the Boring Company’s finance head. It discusses a disagreement over hire funds between OpenAI and Neuralink — Smithies says “I’d expect [OpenAI] to get pretty nasty about it (ie probably willing to sue) if we didn’t pay something that they could point their auditors to,” saying “the main driver” is OpenAI accountants demanding it “so they can pass non-profit audits.” Birchall says he’ll “touch base with Chris to get his perspective.”
A January 2019 message chain between Musk and Birchall, regarding a reimbursement request from OpenAI for shared bills with Neuralink in the Pioneer Building. Musk affords $250,000 and $1 million in funds for 2017 and 2018, respectively.
A full record of Elon Musk’s contributions to OpenAI, with entries relationship from May of 2016 to September of 2020.
A duplicate of the Fidelity Charitable Policy Guidelines, 2017 to 2022.
An iMessage dialog from December 2024 between Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg affords a “quick heads up that Meta sent a letter to the California AG supporting your lawsuit against OpenAI. Someone (not us) leaked leaked the letter and it will be public in the next hour. Wanted to make sure you heard this from me.” Musk replies: “Ok.”
A February 2025 iMessage dialog between Musk and Zuckerberg. “Are you open to the idea of bidding on the OpenAI IP with me and some others?” Musk asks. Zuckerberg asks to debate reside, and Musk says, “Will call in the morning.”
A letter from Musk’s xAI and several other different buyers to OpenAI, proposing an acquisition of all OpenAI’s belongings.
Update, April thirtieth: Added newly obtainable reveals.
Update, May 1st: Added newly obtainable reveals.