On April 27, 2026, the world’s richest person, Elon Musk, and the poster child of the AI revolution, Sam Altman, walked into a federal court in California to present their versions of the truth behind OpenAI. Their arguments paint a portrait of a founding relationship that began with shared idealism and collapsed into accusations of betrayal, manipulation, and greed on both sides. While both sides agreed on the basic origin story, each one framed it very differently.

In early 2015, Mr. Musk was deeply concerned about artificial intelligence falling under the control of for-profit companies, particularly Google. He found a willing partner in Mr. Altman, who professed to share those fears entirely. According to Mr. Musk, Mr. Altman wrote to him that they should “structure [the entity] so that the tech belongs to the world via some sort of nonprofit,” and that the “technology would be owned by the foundation and used ‘for the good of the world.’”