---
title: 'I can’t believe this trial is real...'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=3tbB2dffx0s'
video_id: '3tbB2dffx0s'
date: 2026-06-28
duration_sec: 405
---

# I can’t believe this trial is real...

> Source: [I can’t believe this trial is real...](https://youtube.com/watch?v=3tbB2dffx0s)

## Summary

The trial between Elon Musk and Sam Altman over OpenAI has concluded its closing arguments, revealing a decade of drama, broken promises, and billion-dollar stakes. Musk is suing Altman and OpenAI for $134 billion, claiming they turned a nonprofit charity into a for-profit money machine. The trial has exposed internal emails, texts, and diary entries, painting a picture of a relationship gone sour.

### Key Points

- **Lawsuit Filed** [0:18] — Elon Musk is suing Sam Altman and OpenAI for $134 billion, claiming they stole an open-source charity and turned it into a closed-source money printer.
- **OpenAI's Founding and Musk's Exit** [1:06] — OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit. Musk donated $38 million, tried to take over, lost, and left in 2018 to start xAI.
- **OpenAI's For-Profit Shift** [1:23] — OpenAI created a for-profit subsidiary, received $13 billion from Microsoft, and is now valued near $1 trillion.
- **Bizarre Early Plans** [2:09] — Emails revealed Musk wanted to name the company 'Freethink' or 'Axon,' and proposed a for-profit conversion in 2017 with himself as CEO at a haunted mansion with Amber Heard.
- **Altman's Firing and Reinstatement** [3:55] — Sam Altman was fired in November 2023 for dishonesty, then reinstated after employee support. Mira Murati's text 'Directionally, very bad' became famous.
- **Musk's Admission** [5:40] — Musk admitted under oath that xAI and Grok stole OpenAI models, weakening his case.

## Transcript

Yesterday in a federal courthouse in
Oakland, the trial of the century, Musk
versus Altman, began its closing
arguments. And so far, this trial has
felt like a Silicon Valley episode
written by someone on bath salts. The
richest and sexiest man alive, Elon
Musk, is currently suing a poor gay man,
Sam Altman, and his friends at OpenAI
and Microsoft for $134 billion.
Elon says they stole an open-source
charity and turned it into a
closed-source money printer. While
Altman says he owns no OpenAI equity and
is just doing this because he loves it.
I I'm doing this cuz I love it. The
supporting cast includes Greg Brockman,
who somehow owns $30 billion of the
thing Sam doesn't own. Ilya Sutskever,
the vibes-based AI safety priest. Mira
Murati, Sam's Brutus. And Saadia
Natella, the only adult in the room. And
every single one of them has their
texts, emails, and private diary entries
entered into evidence. In today's video,
we'll break down all the absurdities
discovered throughout this lawsuit and
find out who's going to win, probably.
It is May 15th, 2026, and you're
watching The Code Report. The Musk
versus Altman lawsuit was filed 2 years
ago in 2024, but the drama goes back
over a decade. In 2015, Elon, Sam, Greg
Brockman, and Ilya Sutskever founded
OpenAI as a nonprofit to save humanity
from evil. Elon donated $38 million,
then tried to take it over, lost, rage
quit the board in 2018, and started xAI.
Meanwhile, OpenAI pulled this trick
where they bolted a for-profit
subsidiary onto the nonprofit, it cashed
a $13 billion check from Microsoft, and
is now approaching a valuation of nearly
$1 trillion. In 2024, Musk couldn't take
it anymore.
I just can't do it. I can't take this
no more, man. His claim is that
Altman and Brockman stole a charity,
breached a charitable trust, and
Microsoft aided and abetted them. What
he wants in return is a disgorgement of
up to $134 billion, and plus they need
to unwind the for-profit conversion and
remove Altman and Brockman. But now
here's the fun part. This trial's
discovery has basically been a giant
group chat leak between all these
executives. In exhibit A, we have emails
between Sam and Elon where we find out
that OpenAI was almost called something
entirely different. Elon wanted to call
it Freethink and Sam wanted to call it
Axon. But in hindsight, the best name
for it would have been ClosedAI. In
exhibit B from 2017, OpenAI's tech had
just beat the best humans on Earth at
Dota 2. Elon got a mega huge boner and
emailed the team that it's time to take
the next step for OpenAI, which
translated into converting it from
non-profit to for-profit with Elon as
CEO and as the majority shareholder. But
the craziest part is the meeting
location. Quote, "The haunted mansion I
just bought near San Francisco."
According to Brockman's testimony under
oath, the house was still littered with
confetti and red solo cups from a party
the night before and Amber Heard was
there serving whiskey. And just a few
weeks earlier, Elon had gifted each
co-founder a brand new Tesla Model 3.
But all this buttering up didn't work
and eventually the other co-founders
proposed equal equity. Ilya Sutskever
had even commissioned a painting of a
Tesla to give to Musk as a peace
offering. But according to Brockman,
their proposal made Elon furious. He
quote, "stood up and stormed around the
table. I thought he was going to hit me.
He grabbed the painting and started to
storm out of the room. And then he
turned around and said, 'When will you
be departing from OpenAI?'" Six months
later, he would stop making donations
and leave the OpenAI board. Now, in the
years that followed between 2019 and
2021, Microsoft entered with a $1
billion investment. Even though CEO
Nadella was pretty skeptical of the
actual value of this investment.
Eventually he would double down though
and in 2022 said he didn't want
Microsoft to become the next IBM while
OpenAI became the next Microsoft. But
then around this time, we get another
crazy character popping up, Shivon
Zilis. And she's the mother of four of
Elon's 14 children and used to be on the
OpenAI board and kept Elon up to date on
what was going on there, which became a
big conflict of interest when he
launched xAI. But this next exhibit is
perhaps the most complex and
In November 2023, Sam Altman was fired
from OpenAI for 4 days before a pattern
of behavior related to his honesty and
candor. Ilya wrote a memo accusing him
of a consistent pattern of lying and
pitting his execs against each other.
Meanwhile, Mira Murati snaked him from
the inside. At the height of the chaos,
Altman texted Mira, "Can you indicate
directionally, good or bad?" Her reply
is now immortal, "Directionally, very
bad." Altman was fired and Mira took his
place temporarily. But, Sam Altman was
then reinstated a few days later after
receiving a ton of support from OpenAI
employees and other powerful people. As
Satya Nadella, watching $13 billion of
Microsoft's money swing in the wind,
described the entire situation as,
quote, "A sort of amateur city as far as
I'm concerned." And that brings us to
yesterday, the closing arguments of the
trial. Elon himself wasn't there because
he was on Air Force One flying to
Beijing with Trump, but his lawyer
focused on Altman's lack of
trustworthiness and how he's been able
to enrich himself through various deals
in other companies he owns that are
connected to OpenAI. But, on the flip
side, OpenAI's lawyers claimed Elon is a
guy who never cared about the nonprofit
structure and only cared about winning.
And he seems to have selective amnesia
about his past dealings with the OpenAI
founders. Basically, both sides are
terrible, but who's actually going to
win? Polymarket is giving Elon a 32%
chance of winning, but I think it's even
lower than that. The jury in this case
is advisory, so that means it ultimately
comes down to this judge, Yvonne
Gonzalez Rogers. And I can tell just by
looking at her that she's not going to
like Elon. Her husband worked for the
Obama administration, so this was over
before it even started. But, even if
Hulk Hogan was the judge, Elon's case is
still pretty weak. What they've done to
OpenAI is messed up, but here's the
problem. Elon himself tried to make
OpenAI for profit back in 2017. There
was also never a hard contract that
OpenAI would stay nonprofit forever. And
even worse, he admitted under oath that
xAI and Grok did steal OpenAI models,
and that makes this whole lawsuit feel
like it's trying to a competitor
as opposed to rescuing a charity. No
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the Code Report. Thanks for watching and
I will see you in the next one.