As trial against OpenAI begins, Elon Musk seeks Sam Altman's ouster

Elon Musk arrives at the U.S. District Court in Oakland, Calif., Tuesday, April 28, 2026. Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP hide caption toggle caption Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP A courtroom brawl between two of the tech industry's most powerful leaders, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is underway in Oakland, California in a case that could transform one of the world's most important artificial intelligence companies. "Ladies and gentlemen, we are here today because the defendants in this case stole a charity," Steve Molo, an attorney for Musk, said in his opening statement. In his lawsuit, Musk has argued that Altman steered the company they cofounded a decade ago, ChatGPT creator OpenAI, away from its original mission as a nonprofit meant to develop advanced AI for the benefit of humanity and free of profit motives. The case hinges on a decision early on by OpenAI's founders that they needed to create a for-profit entity to tap capital markets for funding on a scale necessary to build advanced AI. When discussions about who would run the for-profit business broke down in 2018, Musk left. The following year, OpenAI launched a for-profit division, which has since ballooned in value; at the end of March, the company said it was worth $852 billion. Now, Musk's lawyers are set to argue that Altman and others enriched themselves illegally through that for-profit conversion. …