Elon Musk vs. Ultraman, the biggest case in AI history has begun court proceedings

Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author | Azuma (@azuma_eth)

The first major case of the AI era has officially gone to court.

On April 27, the “World’s Richest Man” Elon Musk suing the “World’s Leading AI Company” OpenAI has officially entered the trial stage in the Northern District of California federal court. The jury selection process began on the same day, opening statements are expected to start today, with Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers presiding. The case is expected to last four weeks.

Retrospective of the Grudge

Elon Musk’s long-standing feud with OpenAI.

In 2015, Musk and Sam Altman and others co-founded OpenAI, both holding the same idealism — to create a “non-profit, open-source” AI organization to counteract the AI monopoly of giants like Google. Early on, Musk was one of OpenAI’s biggest donors and played an important role on the board.

However, idealism soon faced practical difficulties. In the early years, OpenAI’s AI development lagged behind Google’s DeepMind for a long time. Under the dual pressures of funding shortages and unfruitful development, Musk grew increasingly dissatisfied with the leadership of Altman and others, even proposing to merge OpenAI into Tesla, with himself as CEO to gain deeper control.

Naturally, Altman and the leadership team refused. The final outcome was that Musk was ousted from the OpenAI board in 2018, ending their collaboration.

Subsequently, in March 2019, OpenAI officially announced abandoning the non-profit route and transforming into a “capped-profit” company. That same year, it accepted a $1 billion investment from Microsoft, ramping up commercialization efforts.

2022 marked another critical point. OpenAI released the world-shocking ChatGPT, officially igniting the large-scale explosion of LLMs. Whether driven by past ideals or simply because they couldn’t stand seeing their predecessor succeed, Musk was quite angry (as media at the time described).

Later, Musk publicly criticized OpenAI on social media for deviating from open-source and non-profit principles, now no longer “OPEN” and fully controlled by Microsoft (notably, today OpenAI announced ending Microsoft’s exclusivity)… Meanwhile, he launched xAI himself, aiming to compete directly with OpenAI.

On the other hand, OpenAI believes Musk is just “biting the hand that feeds him.” OpenAI argues that Musk had shown support for commercialization when he was still on the board (with historical emails as evidence), but only started criticizing after leaving — claiming that his accusations of deviation from original ideals are just excuses because he lost control.

Legal Showdown

Accumulating conflicts led Musk in 2024 to formally sue OpenAI and its two co-founders, Altman and Greg Brockman.

First, in March 2024, Musk filed a lawsuit in California — accusing OpenAI of violating the founding agreement by transforming from a “non-profit” into a “for-profit” entity, effectively becoming a closed-source subsidiary of Microsoft; demanding OpenAI revert to its non-profit mission, open-source its core models, and prevent Microsoft from profiting.

However, this lawsuit was quickly withdrawn, appearing to be a preliminary probe.

In October 2024, Musk refiled the lawsuit in Northern California federal court, this time directly including Microsoft as a defendant, with further escalation in allegations and demands — accusing OpenAI and Microsoft of fraud and misrepresentation (later withdrawn), unjust enrichment, violating charitable trusts, conspiring to convert non-profit assets into commercial gains; demanding to stop OpenAI’s full transition to a profit-driven company, revert to a non-profit structure, strip or recover illegal profits, seek damages of $134 billion–$150 billion, and remove Altman and Brockman from their positions.

In April 2025, OpenAI countersued Musk for harassment and malicious interference, claiming Musk is deliberately delaying OpenAI’s development for personal gain, marking the start of a two-way litigation battle.

Then, in September 2025, Musk’s xAI again sued OpenAI, accusing it of stealing trade secrets, partly because OpenAI hired former xAI employees to obtain confidential information. The next day, Musk also posted on X: “We sent them many warning letters, but they kept cheating. After exhausting all other options, litigation was the only choice.”

Yesterday, this long-running saga finally reached the courtroom. With the trial now underway, more details are expected to be revealed over the next four weeks. While further appeals by either side are possible, the case’s contours will become clearer.

Passionate Exchanges

As the trial begins, Musk and OpenAI are also engaging in heated social media exchanges.

Yesterday evening, Musk posted or retweeted dozens of posts, even launching personal attacks, calling Altman a “scam artist” (Scam Altman), and Brockman a “thief” (Greg Stockman).

“Thief Greg has given himself hundreds of billions of dollars in equity, scammer Altman has also taken a cut through a bunch of related-party transactions similar to Y Combinator’s model (after this lawsuit, he will also get hundreds of billions of dollars in equity)… I could have made OpenAI a profit-making company from the start, but I didn’t. I founded it, funded it, recruited key talent, and taught them everything I knew about building a successful startup — all for the public good. Then they stole this charity.”

On OpenAI’s side, although Altman and Brockman have not responded publicly, OpenAI issued an official statement: “We are eager to present our case in court because the truth and the law are on our side. This lawsuit is baseless, driven by jealousy, and aimed at hindering competition. We will have the opportunity to testify before a California jury about Musk’s attempts to sabotage our work to ensure AI benefits all of humanity.”

Forecast

During the upcoming four-week trial, many heavyweight figures including Musk, Altman, Brockman, and Microsoft CEO Nadella are expected to testify.

According to media reports, witnesses such as former OpenAI board member Shivon Zilis (also mother of Musk’s four children), and evidence like Greg’s private diaries (documenting internal strategic thoughts, already presented as evidence), could be key factors influencing the case’s outcome.

As for Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, appointed by former President Obama, she is known for her pragmatic style and has handled many major disputes between tech companies. In this case, Judge Rogers has broad discretion to decide whether to take remedial actions and what measures to implement. She will divide the trial into two phases: first, determining whether Altman and OpenAI are liable for misconduct; second, if necessary, deciding on remedies.

With the trial underway, prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket have also launched related event contracts. Currently, the odds favor a close contest (Musk’s win probability around 48%), and further developments are awaited.

Looking ahead, this “AI’s biggest case” will not only settle Musk’s and Altman’s longstanding grievances but also potentially impact the subsequent IPO processes of OpenAI and SpaceX, two trillion-dollar valuation companies.

This is the biggest non-technical variable in the current AI competition landscape, likely to profoundly influence the future power structure of the AI world.