Why Do So Many Americans Hate Sam Altman?

The jury took their seats in Courtroom 9 of the Oakland Federal Courthouse in California yesterday. Nine individuals were seated as an "advisory jury" to observe a trial expected to last four weeks and ultimately provide a recommendation to Judge Rogers. Opening statements are set to begin today, Tuesday.

On the same day the jury was being selected, OpenAI announced a newly revised agreement with Microsoft. This agreement eliminated one thing: Microsoft's exclusive license to OpenAI's intellectual property. It’s gone. And this just so happens to be the final lock OpenAI placed on itself when it transitioned to a "capped-profit" structure back in 2019.

What Exactly Is Musk Suing Over?

Reuters and CNBC's trial diary, compiled two weeks before the trial, outlined a case list. When Musk initially filed suit in 2024, he brought 26 claims, covering everything from securities fraud to RICO (racketeering) to antitrust. As the trial begins today, only two claims remain: unjust enrichment and breach of charitable trust.

The remaining 24 claims were either dismissed by the judge during motion proceedings or voluntarily withdrawn by Musk himself. Days before the trial, he proactively dropped some allegations related to "fraud," narrowing the case down to its core, simplest statement: "OpenAI promised me it would always be non-profit." Now, it isn't.

For that one statement, Musk is seeking up to $134 billion in damages. According to his complaint, any compensation would be returned entirely to OpenAI's non-profit arm, but he demands the removal of Altman and Brockman and the reversal of the entire for-profit restructuring. This is the "true core" of the lawsuit. The target isn't stock allocation. It's the OpenAI entity itself – who does it belong to?

Judge Gonzalez Rogers has split the trial into two phases. First, a liability determination, to be concluded by mid-May. If liability is established, then a second phase on damages. The jury only participates in the first phase, and only in an advisory capacity. The final verdict rests with the judge. This means, for Musk, winning the "narrative battle" is more crucial than winning the "compensation." He needs to convince the jury that "this company promised its donors something and then systematically dismantled that promise." If these nine people nod in agreement, the judge will piece together the rest of the puzzle for him.

OpenAI's strategy is almost a mirror image. Convince the jury that Musk's true motive for the lawsuit is competitive jealousy, not a breach of trust. On the day of jury selection, OpenAI's official account fired the first shot: "We can't wait to present our evidence in court. The truth and the law are on our side. This lawsuit has always been an unfounded, jealous competitive attack... We finally have the opportunity to put Musk under oath in front of a California jury."

Note that phrase: "put Musk under oath." That's the strategy. What OpenAI truly wants is to portray Musk, on the public stage of X, as "the xAI founder who lost to OpenAI." Convincing the judge is secondary. The goal is to ensure the ordinary California residents on the jury enter the courtroom with that filter.

How Were OpenAI's "Locks" Broken Down?

To understand why Musk is so furious, you first need to understand the three locks OpenAI placed on itself in 2019, each with a clear design intent.

You'll notice something. In 2019, OpenAI was proving to its donors: "Even if we make money, there's a limit; we must stop at a certain point." On April 27, 2026, OpenAI was proving to its investors: "We have no brakes."

The explanation for the profit cap is the most straightforward. In Altman's 2025 employee letter, he wrote, "The 'capped-profit' structure made sense in a world with only one AGI company. It's no longer applicable when multiple competitors exist." Translation: With competitors, I need to be able to earn more.

The dismantling of the AGI trigger clause is the most subtle. Originally, "achieving AGI terminates the Microsoft commercial license" meant AGI belongs to the public good and humanity; OpenAI wouldn't privatize it. After rewriting, AGI is now determined by an "independent oversight panel," the Microsoft license extends to 2032, explicitly "covering models post-AGI," and Microsoft is permitted to independently pursue AGI. This is a version where even the key to "defining who is AGI" has had its lock core changed.

The final lock was the exclusive license. Its dismantling occurred the moment Musk's jury was seated. Decoupling Microsoft's share from "OpenAI's technical progress" means that even if OpenAI were to announce the achievement of AGI tomorrow, no commercial terms would trigger a change.

Musk's side will argue in court that this was a deliberate dismantling of protective mechanisms. OpenAI's side will argue it was a necessary adjustment in a competitive environment. But there's one thing neither side will dispute: not a single item remains on that 2019 "self-restraint checklist" today.

"Scam Altman": Why Do So Many People Dislike Altman?

On the day of jury selection, X was far more lively than the courtroom. Two hours after OpenAI's official account fired its opening shot, Musk responded with a barrage of seven tweets. Fast-paced, sharp words, dense rhythm. Classic Musk rapid-fire mode. He gave Altman a nickname: Scam Altman.

He also reposted a video clip of former OpenAI board member Helen Toner. In the podcast clip, Toner stated emphatically, "Sam is a liar."

"Sam is a liar." Musk wasn't the first to say this. OpenAI's former CTO Mira Murati said it upon leaving. Ilya Sutskever said it during the "failed coup" to oust Altman. Jan Leike publicly stated it when he resigned, taking the entire superalignment team with him.

There are actually three groups of people who dislike Sam Altman, each for different reasons.

The first group is the old OpenAI board. The landmark event for this group was the five-day firing saga in November 2023. The board's stated reason was that Altman was "not consistently candid in his communications with the board."

What exactly did they uncover? In May 2024, Helen Toner publicly stated that the board learned from Twitter that their own company had released a product that would reshape the global AI industry. She also claimed Altman concealed his ownership stake in the OpenAI Startup Fund, repeatedly stating publicly "I have no financial interest in the company" until he was forced to admit it in April 2024.

He allegedly provided inaccurate information to the board multiple times regarding safety processes. Two senior executives reported Altman's "psychological abuse" to the board, providing screenshot evidence of "lying and manipulation." After Toner published a research paper that OpenAI disliked, Altman also allegedly tried to push her off the board.

The second group is the old OpenAI safety faction.

In May 2024, OpenAI's "superalignment team" virtually disintegrated overnight. Leading the resignations was Jan Leike, one of OpenAI's most senior AI safety researchers. His resignation letter posted on X was one of the most scathing departure notes in the English AI sphere that year, stating that "safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products."

Next came Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI co-founder, chief scientist, and a key instigator of the failed coup. Then, CTO Mira Murati (who had temporarily taken over the company during Altman's firing), Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew, and Vice President of Research Barret Zoph all resigned within the same week. The "non-disparagement agreement" scandal emerged shortly after. Departing employees were forced to sign confidentiality agreements or forfeit equity.

The third group is the old Silicon Valley "contractualists." This group is the hardest to define, and also the largest.

It includes early donors like Musk from 2015, including early OpenAI employees who genuinely believed in the "non-profit mission," including many angel investors who bet on early-stage startups in Silicon Valley, and also a significant portion of neutral observers who viewed OpenAI as a "common heritage of humanity."

What these people share is that they paid non-monetary costs for their belief in OpenAI's promise: reputation, time, trust, social capital. And the specific thing they find hardest to forgive Altman for is that every time OpenAI dismantled one of its own "locks," Altman said, "This is for the mission."

When the profit cap was removed, he said, "It's to allow OpenAI to continuously invest in AGI research." When the AGI trigger clause was rewritten, he said, "It's to allow OpenAI to fulfill its mission even after achieving AGI." When the Microsoft exclusivity was canceled, he said, "It's to allow OpenAI to move towards a broader collaborative ecosystem."

This is why a segment of Silicon Valley finds itself reluctantly siding with Musk in this lawsuit.

The Weight of a Promise in Silicon Valley: Answers in Four Weeks

After this analysis, you can probably see clearly. This fight isn't about money.

For OpenAI's part, it's about Altman. By 2026, leading OpenAI valued at over $500 billion, a CEO of this private AI giant, he doesn't lack for funds. For Musk's part, with xAI in the Grok 5 era by 2026, Anthropic is his target to chase, OpenAI is his to surpass – he lacks for nothing even more.

What they are fighting over is something only a few long-term Silicon Valley participants truly care about. Can a non-profit organization, which raised funds from society in the name of "humanity's common good," accumulated moral capital, recruited talent, and obtained regulatory exemptions, legitimately transform itself, over a decade, into an ordinary for-profit company jointly controlled by its CEO and VCs?

If this is possible, then every future AI startup could do the same. "Non-profit" would become a cheap early-stage narrative tool, used to get headlines, pass regulatory hurdles, and recruit employees, only to be quietly dismantled when the valuation gets large enough.

If Musk wins, Silicon Valley might face a long-forgotten awkwardness. It turns out that promises you made in 2015 can be dug up word for word in 2026, forcing you to testify under oath in a California federal court. If OpenAI wins, the world continues operating as it has for the past decade in Silicon Valley: tell a story early, focus on scale later, and in between, systematically dismantle the contract that links the story and the scale.

There will be an answer in four weeks. But the label "Scam Altman" has already been etched onto social media, and regardless of the verdict, it will persist. The root of why so many people dislike Altman is that he made those who believed him feel deceived. How much money he makes is secondary.

And the feeling of being deceived is something a verdict cannot undo.