Musk testifies for 2nd day in OpenAI trial

Added: 2026-04-30

[00:00:00]A trial pitting two tech titans against each other continues to unfold in a California courtroom. Elon Musk is going up against Open AI Sam Alman and alleges Open AI strayed from its core mission and instead focused on maximizing profits. Musk testified for a second day. Wired senior writer Pesh Dvet has been at the courthouse following this trial joining us now. So what did Elon Musk say today on the stand?

[00:00:28]So Elon has been trying to convince the jury and the judge uh that he started having concerns around two 2022 2023.

[00:00:42]And the key thing that's kind of overlooked in this case is that there's a statute of limitations question. The jury first has to answer whether Musk even timely filed this case before looking at his underlying claims about breach of charitable trust and Sam Alman unjustly enriching himself. There's this question of like when did Mus know that he had concerns and did he bring uh the lawsuit within knowing of those concerns? And when uh OpenAI's lawyers got a chance to cross-examine him uh later in the day today, they've been pressing him on the fact that, you know, he knew about this change of Open AI to a forprofit uh way earlier than 2022 and that he had concerns back then that he could have raised. Instead, he only brought these concerns after OpenAI became a success with the release of Chat GPT. And OpenAI has been trying to portray this as a case of sour grapes and Elon being vindictive all along the way.

[00:01:46]>> So how is Musk trying to make his case against open AI?

[00:01:52]Musk is trying to say that this is about more than open AI that this is about uh charities in America and the very foundation of charitable giving that uh a nonprofit can't be fleeced you know that you can't steal a charity. He's repeated that line several times. Uh and he's trying to make that case to the jury that this is um a very pivotal case that could change how nonprofits work in the future. Uh there's no legal real legal analysis be behind that. Uh and this is not a precedent setting case in that regard. Um but that's the you know case that he's trying to make to the jury.

[00:02:33]>> Yeah, we're catching glimpses as he's walking through security and that's all we get because it's in federal court. Um do we expect Sam Alman to take the stand?

[00:02:42]>> Yes, the next witness is expected to be Gerald Burchell, uh Elon Musk's business manager. uh and then a few more uh Musk allies and employees potentially and some AI safety experts, but eventually we do expect to hear from Sam Alman.

[00:03:00]>> Fascinating. We'll continue to follow this. Pesh, thank you so