I can’t believe this trial is real...

[00:00] Yesterday in a federal courthouse in

[00:01] Oakland, the trial of the century, Musk

[00:04] versus Altman, began its closing

[00:06] arguments. And so far, this trial has

[00:08] felt like a Silicon Valley episode

[00:10] written by someone on bath salts. The

[00:11] richest and sexiest man alive, Elon

[00:14] Musk, is currently suing a poor gay man,

[00:16] Sam Altman, and his friends at OpenAI

[00:18] and Microsoft for $134 billion.

[00:21] Elon says they stole an open-source

[00:23] charity and turned it into a

[00:25] closed-source money printer. While

[00:26] Altman says he owns no OpenAI equity and

[00:29] is just doing this because he loves it.

[00:31] I I'm doing this cuz I love it. The

[00:33] supporting cast includes Greg Brockman,

[00:35] who somehow owns $30 billion of the

[00:37] thing Sam doesn't own. Ilya Sutskever,

[00:39] the vibes-based AI safety priest. Mira

[00:42] Murati, Sam's Brutus. And Saadia

[00:44] Natella, the only adult in the room. And

[00:46] every single one of them has their

[00:47] texts, emails, and private diary entries

[00:50] entered into evidence. In today's video,

[00:52] we'll break down all the absurdities

[00:53] discovered throughout this lawsuit and

[00:55] find out who's going to win, probably.

[00:57] It is May 15th, 2026, and you're

[01:00] watching The Code Report. The Musk

[01:01] versus Altman lawsuit was filed 2 years

[01:03] ago in 2024, but the drama goes back

[01:06] over a decade. In 2015, Elon, Sam, Greg

[01:09] Brockman, and Ilya Sutskever founded

[01:11] OpenAI as a nonprofit to save humanity

[01:13] from evil. Elon donated $38 million,

[01:16] then tried to take it over, lost, rage

[01:18] quit the board in 2018, and started xAI.

[01:21] Meanwhile, OpenAI pulled this trick

[01:23] where they bolted a for-profit

[01:24] subsidiary onto the nonprofit, it cashed

[01:27] a $13 billion check from Microsoft, and

[01:29] is now approaching a valuation of nearly

[01:31] $1 trillion. In 2024, Musk couldn't take

[01:34] it anymore.

[01:39] I just can't do it. I can't take this

[01:41] no more, man. His claim is that

[01:43] Altman and Brockman stole a charity,

[01:45] breached a charitable trust, and

[01:47] Microsoft aided and abetted them. What

[01:49] he wants in return is a disgorgement of

[01:51] up to $134 billion, and plus they need

[01:54] to unwind the for-profit conversion and

[01:56] remove Altman and Brockman. But now

[01:58] here's the fun part. This trial's

[01:59] discovery has basically been a giant

[02:01] group chat leak between all these

[02:03] executives. In exhibit A, we have emails

[02:05] between Sam and Elon where we find out

[02:07] that OpenAI was almost called something

[02:09] entirely different. Elon wanted to call

[02:11] it Freethink and Sam wanted to call it

[02:13] Axon. But in hindsight, the best name

[02:15] for it would have been ClosedAI. In

[02:17] exhibit B from 2017, OpenAI's tech had

[02:19] just beat the best humans on Earth at

[02:21] Dota 2. Elon got a mega huge boner and

[02:23] emailed the team that it's time to take

[02:25] the next step for OpenAI, which

[02:27] translated into converting it from

[02:28] non-profit to for-profit with Elon as

[02:30] CEO and as the majority shareholder. But

[02:33] the craziest part is the meeting

[02:34] location. Quote, "The haunted mansion I

[02:36] just bought near San Francisco."

[02:38] According to Brockman's testimony under

[02:40] oath, the house was still littered with

[02:42] confetti and red solo cups from a party

[02:43] the night before and Amber Heard was

[02:45] there serving whiskey. And just a few

[02:47] weeks earlier, Elon had gifted each

[02:49] co-founder a brand new Tesla Model 3.

[02:51] But all this buttering up didn't work

[02:53] and eventually the other co-founders

[02:55] proposed equal equity. Ilya Sutskever

[02:57] had even commissioned a painting of a

[02:59] Tesla to give to Musk as a peace

[03:00] offering. But according to Brockman,

[03:02] their proposal made Elon furious. He

[03:04] quote, "stood up and stormed around the

[03:06] table. I thought he was going to hit me.

[03:08] He grabbed the painting and started to

[03:09] storm out of the room. And then he

[03:11] turned around and said, 'When will you

[03:12] be departing from OpenAI?'" Six months

[03:14] later, he would stop making donations

[03:16] and leave the OpenAI board. Now, in the

[03:18] years that followed between 2019 and

[03:20] 2021, Microsoft entered with a $1

[03:23] billion investment. Even though CEO

[03:24] Nadella was pretty skeptical of the

[03:26] actual value of this investment.

[03:28] Eventually he would double down though

[03:29] and in 2022 said he didn't want

[03:31] Microsoft to become the next IBM while

[03:34] OpenAI became the next Microsoft. But

[03:36] then around this time, we get another

[03:37] crazy character popping up, Shivon

[03:39] Zilis. And she's the mother of four of

[03:41] Elon's 14 children and used to be on the

[03:44] OpenAI board and kept Elon up to date on

[03:46] what was going on there, which became a

[03:47] big conflict of interest when he

[03:49] launched xAI. But this next exhibit is

[03:51] perhaps the most complex and

[03:53] In November 2023, Sam Altman was fired

[03:56] from OpenAI for 4 days before a pattern

[03:59] of behavior related to his honesty and

[04:01] candor. Ilya wrote a memo accusing him

[04:03] of a consistent pattern of lying and

[04:05] pitting his execs against each other.

[04:07] Meanwhile, Mira Murati snaked him from

[04:09] the inside. At the height of the chaos,

[04:11] Altman texted Mira, "Can you indicate

[04:13] directionally, good or bad?" Her reply

[04:15] is now immortal, "Directionally, very

[04:17] bad." Altman was fired and Mira took his

[04:19] place temporarily. But, Sam Altman was

[04:21] then reinstated a few days later after

[04:23] receiving a ton of support from OpenAI

[04:25] employees and other powerful people. As

[04:27] Satya Nadella, watching $13 billion of

[04:29] Microsoft's money swing in the wind,

[04:31] described the entire situation as,

[04:33] quote, "A sort of amateur city as far as

[04:35] I'm concerned." And that brings us to

[04:37] yesterday, the closing arguments of the

[04:38] trial. Elon himself wasn't there because

[04:41] he was on Air Force One flying to

[04:42] Beijing with Trump, but his lawyer

[04:44] focused on Altman's lack of

[04:45] trustworthiness and how he's been able

[04:47] to enrich himself through various deals

[04:49] in other companies he owns that are

[04:50] connected to OpenAI. But, on the flip

[04:52] side, OpenAI's lawyers claimed Elon is a

[04:54] guy who never cared about the nonprofit

[04:56] structure and only cared about winning.

[04:58] And he seems to have selective amnesia

[05:00] about his past dealings with the OpenAI

[05:02] founders. Basically, both sides are

[05:04] terrible, but who's actually going to

[05:05] win? Polymarket is giving Elon a 32%

[05:08] chance of winning, but I think it's even

[05:10] lower than that. The jury in this case

[05:11] is advisory, so that means it ultimately

[05:13] comes down to this judge, Yvonne

[05:15] Gonzalez Rogers. And I can tell just by

[05:17] looking at her that she's not going to

[05:18] like Elon. Her husband worked for the

[05:20] Obama administration, so this was over

[05:22] before it even started. But, even if

[05:24] Hulk Hogan was the judge, Elon's case is

[05:26] still pretty weak. What they've done to

[05:27] OpenAI is messed up, but here's the

[05:29] problem. Elon himself tried to make

[05:31] OpenAI for profit back in 2017. There

[05:33] was also never a hard contract that

[05:35] OpenAI would stay nonprofit forever. And

[05:37] even worse, he admitted under oath that

[05:40] xAI and Grok did steal OpenAI models,

[05:43] and that makes this whole lawsuit feel

[05:44] like it's trying to a competitor

[05:46] as opposed to rescuing a charity. No

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[06:41] the Code Report. Thanks for watching and

[06:43] I will see you in the next one.