OpenAI Trial Sequel: Musk’s Meltdown, Tesla’s Bailout, and the Inside Story of the “Haunted House Meeting”

Original｜Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author｜Wenser (@wenser 2010 )

On April 28, Musk and OpenAI executives faced off in a federal court in Oakland, California. (See: Musk vs. Altman: The Biggest Case in AI History Goes to Trial)

The man, bearing the title of the world's richest person, co-founded OpenAI but then left in a huff, much like Steve Jobs did with Apple in his day. As court proceedings on May 6 and 7 revealed opening statements and evidence, more unknown details of the dispute between two tech titans, SpaceX and OpenAI—each valued at trillions of dollars—began to surface. These details involve not only Musk's own tactics but also the personal ambitions and principles of OpenAI's executives.

Based on public information and court documents, Odaily Planet Daily has compiled eight stories to offer readers insight into the hidden circumstances behind the "biggest AI trial in history," involving a potential settlement of up to $134 billion.

Inside Story 1: Musk Pumps $38 Million in Seed Funding, OpenAI Exec Greg Brockman Nets $30 Billion in Equity

During the second week of Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI, OpenAI co-founder and President Greg Brockman and his personal diaries from 2015 to 2023 appeared as a witness and evidence in a California court. Musk's lawyer, Steven Molo, quickly seized on a discrepancy: compared to Musk's $38 million in actual cash investments to support OpenAI's founding and early development, Greg Brockman himself admitted, "I didn't invest a single cent in OpenAI's founding and development." Yet today, based on OpenAI's post-funding valuation of $825 billion, his personal stake in the company is worth approximately $30 billion.

Greg Brockman's diaries also laid bare his "wealth ambition," including statements like:

• “Financially, what will take me to $1B?” / “It would be nice to be making the billions.” / “We’ve been thinking that maybe we should just flip to a for profit. Making the money for us sounds great and all.”
• “Can’t see us turning this into a for-profit without a very nasty fight... It’d be wrong to steal the non-profit from him. That’d be pretty morally bankrupt... and he’s really not an idiot. His story will correctly be that we weren’t honest with him in the end about still wanting to do the for-profit just without him.”
• Furthermore, he wrote, “This is our only chance to get rid of Musk… to make myself $1 billion.”

Although Greg Brockman argued that some scenarios were hypothetical and contingent on the board ousting Musk, they hardly paint a picture of someone indifferent to wealth.

This is significant because Greg Brockman had previously pledged to donate $100,000 to the OpenAI non-profit foundation, a pledge he never fulfilled. When asked, "Do you want to fund a non-profit, or do you want to become a billionaire from OpenAI?" he responded magnanimously, "Having $10 billion in stock is already satisfying." However, when Musk's lawyer Molo asked why he didn't donate the remaining $29 billion in equity to the OpenAI non-profit foundation, Greg was left speechless.

For comparison, Greg has invested $471 million in his former company Stripe and holds shares in cloud computing provider CoreWeave, one of OpenAI's partners. The co-founder who joined via technical contribution suddenly became a focal point of public debate for wanting to have it both ways.

Inside Story 2: Former OpenAI Board Member Meets Musk at a Company Retreat, Then Accepts Sperm Donation and Has Four Children

On May 7, Beijing time, Shivon Zilis, a former OpenAI board member with whom Musk has four children, also testified in court.

She stated that she first met Musk at an OpenAI company retreat, having joined the company in 2016 and served on the board for several years.

When she decided to become a single mother and have children, Musk, who has always championed a "human-centric" mission, proactively offered to donate sperm for her to conceive via IVF.

Regarding their current relationship status, Shivon Zilis said, "We are in a romantic relationship. Musk visits regularly." However, she denied being Musk's "secret agent" or "channel of information." Musk, on the other hand, referred to her as his "close advisor."

After Musk's relationship with OpenAI's other co-founders soured in 2018, she still acted as a bridge. She formally left the OpenAI board only after Musk founded his rival AI company, xAI, in 2023.

Inside Story 3: OpenAI Was Originally Called the "AI Manhattan Project"; Musk Chose Its Current Name

In May 2015, Sam Altman, then president of Y Combinator and an OpenAI founder, sent an email to Musk proposing that Y Combinator spearhead "a Manhattan Project-style AI lab." (Author's note: A reference to the atomic bomb project led by Oppenheimer.)

Ultimately, Musk personally named the new AI lab the "Open AI Institute," abbreviated as "OpenAI" (drawing from the Open Source philosophy)—a name that embodied OpenAI's core founding principles: openness, transparency, and service to all of humanity.

In hindsight, with the trajectory of AGI development and the current awkward situation of the two men facing off in court, Sam Altman might have foreseen that OpenAI and large AI models would become like the atomic bomb—transforming from a "tool to end war" into a "weapon of mass destruction capable of destroying the world." OpenAI's complete transition into a for-profit company, planning an IPO, signals its departure from its original open-source and open spirit.

Inside Story 4: Musk Poaches Former Google Researcher Ilya Sutskever for OpenAI with a Single Phone Call

In 2015, Ilya Sutskever, then acquired by Google, suddenly received a "cold email" from Sam Altman (Author's note: A personal email sent to someone with whom the sender has had no prior direct interaction), inviting him to dinner with Greg Brockman and Musk to discuss forming a new AI research organization (later OpenAI). At the time, Altman emphasized the organization's goal was to develop AGI for the benefit of all humanity, to avoid monopoly by a few giant companies.

Sutskever had been working at Google for nearly three years and was highly valued and strongly urged to stay by the Google Brain team and DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis.

Faced with the "Chief Scientist" olive branch from the fledgling OpenAI, Sutskever hesitated, despite sharing its vision. Ultimately, on the day of OpenAI's official public launch, Musk called him and convinced him to leave Google and join, securing a foundational figure for OpenAI's early development.

Unfortunately, in November 2023, Ilya Sutskever, then a board member, participated in the ousting of Sam Altman as CEO due to disagreements over AI safety and commercialization. The incident ended with Sam Altman regaining control of the board, Ilya publicly apologizing and resigning from the board. In May 2024, he formally left OpenAI. At the time, Sam Altman publicly thanked him, saying, "Without Ilya, OpenAI wouldn't be what it is today."

Inside Story 5: OpenAI Nearly Became a Tesla Subsidiary; OpenAI Employees Once Worked for Tesla for Free

These two pieces of information came from former OpenAI board member Shivon Zilis and co-founder/president Greg Brockman.

According to Shivon Zilis, around 2017, about two years after OpenAI's founding, Musk, Sam Altman, and others were struggling with computing power and funding, desperately seeking money and GPU resources.

One day, Musk suddenly proposed merging OpenAI into Tesla as a subsidiary, serving as an internal AI lab to access more funding and resources. Additionally, Musk offered Sam Altman a seat on Tesla's board. However, due to strong opposition from Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, the plan ultimately fell through. It was after this that Musk gradually parted ways with OpenAI's current founding team, leading to a complete breakdown in their relationship in 2018 and his angry exit.

Furthermore, Greg Brockman noted that Musk had reassigned several OpenAI employees to work on Tesla's autonomous driving team "for free," including Andrej Karpathy, a former OpenAI researcher who later officially joined Tesla and is now considered a titan in the AI field.

Inside Story 6: Musk "Bribed" Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever with Founder Series Tesla Model 3s

In July 2017, on the eve of the "haunted mansion meeting" over control of OpenAI's majority equity, Musk emailed some OpenAI executives, explicitly stating: "As a thank you for your contributions to OpenAI, I want to give each of you a Founder Series Model 3. These are the first off the production line and not yet available to the public."

In August 2017, Sutskever texted Brockman about it: “At least we’re getting our Teslas.” “Will a Model 3 make you be willing to accept massively unfavourable terms?” At that time, OpenAI's top leadership was already prepared for Musk's "sugar-coated bullets."

Greg Brockman also stated in court that Musk's "Tesla car reward" wasn't for good work but to gain more influence within OpenAI—a form of "courting" (Author's note: arguably a form of bribery) towards him and Ilya Sutskever. Because the cars were delivered in late August 2017, right before the meeting on OpenAI's for-profit entity equity distribution.

Interestingly, as a goodwill gesture, then-Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever commissioned a painting of a Tesla Model 3 and presented it to Musk at the subsequent "haunted mansion meeting."

Inside Story 7: At the Haunted Mansion Meeting, Musk Suddenly Flies into a Rage, Almost "Punching Someone"

In August 2017, after OpenAI beat top human players in a Dota 2 competition, Musk suggested "celebrating" and invited the OpenAI team to a party at his newly purchased 47-acre, $23 million mansion in Hillsborough, California.

Because of its outdated decor, poor maintenance, and eerie atmosphere (like a Gatsby-esque strange mansion), Musk jokingly called it the "haunted mansion." He even sent an email warning everyone they might see "party carnage."

According to Greg Brockman's courtroom testimony, besides the OpenAI team, Musk's then-girlfriend, Amber Heard, was initially there, pouring whiskey before leaving with friends. The atmosphere was initially pleasant. However, when the discussion turned to "OpenAI transitioning into a for-profit entity" as the "next step," things changed—when he didn't get the expected response regarding equity distribution and control, Musk seemed to become a different person. "He suddenly stood up, stormed around the table, and was extremely angry." Brockman said, "I genuinely thought he was going to hit me."

Finally, Musk grabbed the painting Ilya Sutskever had given him, announced he would cut off funding for OpenAI unless Brockman and Sutskever resigned, and stormed out of the room, ending the party on a sour note.

Inside Story 8: Musk Fought for Control of OpenAI to Fulfill His "Mars Dream"?

During the trial, when asked, "Why did Musk absolutely need to gain control of OpenAI?" Greg Brockman said Musk told him he needed control partly because he required $80 billion to complete his grand vision of building a city on Mars.

Meanwhile, efforts for a SpaceX IPO are also in full swing, with a target fundraising amount coincidentally around $75 billion, closely matching the $80 billion Brockman mentioned.

After eight years, the root cause of the love-hate relationship between Musk and OpenAI might finally be clear—Musk needed OpenAI as a key vehicle to inject capital into SpaceX. If he had succeeded in taking control of OpenAI back then, he might have transformed it into a for-profit entity just like Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. The difference is that Musk might not have needed to redundantly create xAI from scratch and eventually merge it into SpaceX.

Of course, according to the latest news, Musk has turned to collaborating with OpenAI's biggest competitor, Anthropic, betting his available computing resources on them to indirectly achieve his ultimate dream—landing on Mars. See: Musk and Anthropic Go to Space to Find Electricity.

We will end this article with a small anecdote from the trial of this "first major AI case," involving potential compensation of up to $134 billion.

According to documents filed by OpenAI's lawyers, two days before the trial formally began, Musk texted Greg Brockman to feel out OpenAI's willingness to settle. When Brockman mentioned that "both sides should drop their claims," Musk sharply retorted: "This weekend, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America. If you insist, so be it."

Although Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, presiding over the case, ultimately did not admit this text as evidence, as things stand, the "legal battle" between Musk and OpenAI is far from over.