Two days before Elon Musk’s multibillion-dollar lawsuit against OpenAI went to trial, Musk sent a text message to the company’s president, Greg Brockman, to gauge interest in a settlement, according to a late Sunday filing.
“When Mr. Brockman responded with a proposal for both sides to drop their respective claims, Mr. Musk retorted, ‘By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America. If you insist, you will be,'” the filing states.
Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015, sued the company, Brockman and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in 2024, accusing them of backtracking on their promise to keep the artificial intelligence company a nonprofit and carry out its philanthropic mission.
Trial proceedings began last week in federal court in Oakland, California, and Brockman could be called to testify as early as Monday. OpenAI’s lawyers moved to have Musk’s text entered into evidence and indicated they planned to bring it up while Brockman was on the stand.
“This tends to demonstrate motive and bias, and in particular demonstrates that Mr. Musk’s motive in pursuing this lawsuit is to attack his competitors and their management,” the lawyers wrote in their filing.
Musk took the witness stand last week, and his testimony dominated the first week of the trial. For three days, he answered questions about his role in launching OpenAI, repeatedly accusing Altman and Brockman of trying to “steal their charity.”
He also answered questions about xAI, a competing AI startup he founded five years after leaving OpenAI’s board in 2018. Musk merged xAI with his rocket company SpaceX in February, valuing the startup at $250 billion.
After Musk stepped down as director, OpenAI began commercialization and established a commercial subsidiary in 2018. Its business started booming after launching ChatGPT in late 2022, and OpenAI is currently valued at more than $850 billion by private investors.
Musk alleges in his lawsuit that approximately $38 million in early donations to OpenAI were used for unauthorized commercial purposes. From the stand, he repeatedly said that OpenAI’s commercial arm has become “like the tail wagging the dog.”
OpenAI dismissed Musk’s claims as “baseless.”
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is overseeing the case, and trial proceedings will resume Monday at 11:30 a.m. ET.
WATCH: The Musk vs. OpenAI case is underway – here’s what’s going on
