Elon Musk and Sam Altman are about to face off in court. Is an impartial jury even possible?
By Hadas Gold, CNN
(CNN) — A group of regular people who might not even know much about artificial intelligence could soon determine OpenAI’s future.
Elon Musk’s lawsuit against ChatGPT maker OpenAI and its leaders, including CEO Sam Altman, heads to court Monday. Some of the biggest names in tech are expected to testify about whether executives deceived Musk and betrayed OpenAI’s original nonprofit mission when it evolved to include a for-profit arm.
The trial comes at a precarious time for OpenAI, with a blockbuster IPO on the horizon and frenzied competition among rivals. OpenAI’s IPO ambitions may fall apart if Musk wins the case. Altman and OpenAI co-founder and President Greg Brockman could lose their positions – clearing an easier path for Musk’s AI company, xAI, to get ahead.
“This is a tech soap opera that all investors will be watching as Musk vs Altman enters the MMA ring,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in an email. “We believe there will be a lot of dirt and slings thrown around in court between Musk and Altman, and that is not a good thing for anyone involved, but Musk has made this personal.”
But in a case involving the richest man in the world, the company that’s become synonymous with AI and major tech players and CEOs, finding impartial jurors will be a challenge.
How will the jury be chosen?
Musk and Altman aren’t just CEOs, they’re celebrities. Many possible jurors, especially from Silicon Valley, “will just have really strong opinions about these two titans of tech and AI,” jury consultant Alan Tuerkheimer told CNN.
But that alone isn’t a problem, said Professor Elizabeth Lippy, director of trial advocacy at Temple University law school.
“The law doesn’t require jurors who have never heard of Elon Musk or AI,” she said. “It requires jurors who can put aside what they’ve heard and decide the case based only on the evidence presented in court.”
The judge is calling a much larger pool of candidates during Monday’s jury selection, about three times larger than typical for a civil case, Tuerkheimer noted.
The judge and attorneys will try and “flesh out” how potential jurors feel not just about the bold face names, but also AI in general, Tuerkheimer said.
The jurors will only determine liability on an advisory basis for Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who will decide any remedies herself.
What is Musk alleging?
Musk cofounded and helped fund OpenAI as a nonprofit in 2015, giving what he says amounted to around $44 million in its first few years. But he split from the company in 2018 after an acrimonious power struggle. (Musk went on to later found his own AI company xAI.)
After Musk left, OpenAI needed to raise more cash. A for-profit subsidiary was established in 2019, which was converted into a public benefit corporation overseen by the nonprofit foundation in 2025. The attorneys general in California and Delaware approved the shift last year.
Musk claims that shift betrayed OpenAI’s original nonprofit mission to develop safe open-source AI technology for the public good, not private gain. He claims the company profited wrongfully from his contributions in a breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment.
Microsoft, which Musk named as a co-defendant in the case, is accused of aiding and abetting OpenAI’s breach of charitable trust.
“Musk and the non-profit’s namesake objective were betrayed by Altman and his accomplices,” Musk’s original complaint said. “The perfidy and deceit are of Shakespearean proportions.”
Musk wants the judge to revert OpenAI back to its previous non-profit structure, the removal of Altman and Brockman from their roles on the board and more than $130 billion in damages. (Musk has told the court he wants any damages to go to OpenAI’s nonprofit and not to him personally).
OpenAI claims that Musk pushed for a for-profit structure himself. The company says he left because he was not able to assume total control and that the lawsuit is “motivated by jealousy, regret for walking away from OpenAI and a desire to derail a competing AI company.”
“The underlying issue is real: Can a company sell a public-good mission and later evolve into something else?” Lippy said. “At the same time, jurors — and the public — are going to be weighing Musk’s motives. Is this about principle, or is it about competition? That tension is going to drive the entire case.”
The evidence includes hundreds of pages of emails, texts and personal writings from some of the biggest names in technology. Witnesses expected to take the stand include Musk, Altman, Brockman, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, former high ranking OpenAI executives and people close to Musk. That includes Shivon Zillis, mother of some of Musk’s children and a former OpenAI board member. The jury is expected to start deliberations by May 12.
“A single email can feel devastating on cross-examination, but trials are about story, context, credibility, and burden of proof,” Lippy said. “The winning side will be the one that makes the documents fit into a simple human story jurors can believe.”
The-CNN-Wire
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