Elon Musk vs. Ultraman, the biggest case in AI history has begun court proceedings

Original Title: “Elon Musk vs. Ultraman, the First Major AI Case in History Has Begun Court”
Original Author: Azuma, Odaily Planet Daily

The first major case of the AI era has officially opened in court.

On April 27, the case in which “the world’s richest person” Elon Musk sues OpenAI, the “world’s leading AI company,” has officially entered the trial stage at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, and the juror selection process began on the same day. The opening statements are expected to be delivered today. The presiding judge is Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, and the case is expected to be heard for four weeks.

Retrospective of Grudges

The feud between Musk and OpenAI has a long history.

In 2015, Musk, along with Sam Altman and others, co-founded OpenAI. At the time, both sides shared the same idealism—to build a “non-profit, open-source” AI organization to counter AI monopolies by giants such as Google.

In the early days, Musk was even one of OpenAI’s biggest donors and played an important role on the board.

However, the idealism soon ran into real-world difficulties, and for many years in its early development, OpenAI’s AI progress lagged behind Google’s DeepMind.

Under the dual pressures of a lack of funding and fruitless development, Musk became increasingly dissatisfied with OpenAI’s leadership, headed by Altman, and even proposed merging OpenAI into Tesla, with himself personally serving as CEO to gain deeper control over OpenAI.

Of course, the leadership team, including Altman, would not agree. In the end, Musk was ousted from OpenAI’s board in 2018, and the collaboration between the two sides came to an end.

Then, in March 2019, OpenAI officially announced it was abandoning the non-profit model and switching to a “limited-profit company.” That same year, it also accepted a $1 billion investment from Microsoft and began to ramp up its commercialization efforts.

2022 was another key turning point. In that year, OpenAI released the world-shocking ChatGPT, officially kicking off the LLM boom. Or perhaps, driven by past idealism—or maybe simply because Musk couldn’t stand his predecessor’s success growing bigger and bigger—Musk was extremely angry (as the media put it at the time).

After that, Musk, on one hand, has been publicly attacking OpenAI on social media for deviating from open-source and non-profit principles; it is no longer “OPEN” and is now fully controlled by Microsoft (it’s worth noting that today OpenAI has announced the termination of Microsoft’s exclusivity rights)… while also personally stepping in to build xAI, hoping to compete head-on with OpenAI.

But on the other hand, OpenAI believes Musk is nothing more than “sour grapes.” OpenAI argues that when Musk was still on the board in the early days, he had intended to support the commercialization transition (there is evidence from historical emails). Yet it wasn’t until after he left that he began to criticize—what’s called “abandoning the original intention” is merely an excuse Musk made after losing control.

Heading to Court

As the conflicts accumulated, in 2024 Musk officially filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its two main co-founders, Altman and Greg (Greg Brockman).

First, in March 2024, Musk filed a lawsuit in California, accusing OpenAI of violating the founding agreement by transforming the company from a “non-profit” into a “for-profit entity,” effectively turning it into Microsoft’s “closed-source subsidiary.” He also demanded that OpenAI be forced to return to its non-profit mission, open-source its core models, and prevent Microsoft from profiting from them.

However, this lawsuit was quickly dismissed, appearing to be just a tentative probe.

In October 2024, Musk again refiled the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. This time, Musk directly listed Microsoft as a defendant, and escalated the allegations and demands further—alleging that OpenAI and Microsoft engaged in fraud and misleading conduct (later, this portion of the allegations was withdrawn), unjust enrichment, violation of charitable trusts, and collusion to convert non-profit assets into commercial benefits;

Demanding that OpenAI be prevented from fully transforming into a profit-driven company, that it return to a non-profit structure, that illegal profits be stripped or reclaimed, that damages of $134 billion–$150 billion be paid, and that Altman and Greg be removed.

In April 2025, OpenAI counter-sued Musk, citing harassment and malicious interference with operations, claiming that Musk intentionally slowed the development of OpenAI for personal gain. The two sides have since entered a stage of mutual litigation.

Then in September 2025, Musk’s xAI sued OpenAI again, accusing it of stealing trade secrets, in part because OpenAI hired former xAI employees to obtain confidential information. The next day, Musk also posted on X saying, “We sent them a lot of warning letters, but they kept cheating. After using up all other options, litigation is the only choice.”

Yesterday, this long-running spectacle finally formally took the stage in court. With the trial stage underway, more details of the case are expected to be disclosed gradually over the next four weeks. Although it’s not ruled out that one side or the other may file further appeals later, the case’s outline and key points are certain to become clearer.

Passionate Exchanges

With the trial beginning, Musk and OpenAI have also been engaging in passionate back-and-forth attacks on social media.

Late yesterday evening, Musk posted or reposted dozens of posts in succession, even launching personal attacks. He called Altman a “Scam Altman” and called Greg “Greg Stockman.”

“Thief Greg gave himself equity worth hundreds of billions of dollars, and scammer Altman also took a slice for himself through a bunch of related-party transactions similar to the Y Combinator model (after this lawsuit, he will get another round of equity worth hundreds of billions of dollars)… I could have made OpenAI a for-profit company from the start, but I didn’t.

I founded it, funded it, recruited key talent, and taught them everything I knew about how to build a successful startup—everything was for the public good. Then, they stole this charitable institution.”

On the OpenAI side, although neither Altman nor Greg has spoken out directly, OpenAI responded through official channels, saying: “We can’t wait to present our case in court, because the truth and the law are on our side.

This lawsuit was started from the beginning without any basis, driven by jealousy, and aimed at blocking a competitor. In the end, we will also have the opportunity to put Musk on oath before a California jury and question his attempt to undermine the work we do to ensure that general AI benefits all of humanity.”

Scenario Forecast

During the four-week trial period, many heavyweight figures—including Musk, Altman, Greg, and Nadella (Microsoft CEO)—are expected to testify.

According to reports from various parties, witnesses such as Shivon Zilis (a former OpenAI board member, and also the mother of Musk’s four children), as well as documentary evidence such as Greg’s private diary (recording internal strategic thinking, already presented as evidence), could become key factors that shape how the case develops.

As for Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, she is a judge appointed by former U.S. President Obama and is known for her pragmatic approach; she has handled many major disputes among technology companies.

In this case, Judge Rogers has broad discretion to decide whether to take any remedial measures and what measures to take. She will divide the trial into two stages: in the first stage, determine whether Altman and OpenAI are responsible for misconduct; in the second stage, if necessary, determine remedies.

With the trial underway, prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket have also listed related events. At present, both sides remain roughly in balance (Musk’s win probability is currently about 48%), and further updates are still needed.

Looking further ahead, this “AI first major case” will not only adjudicate the historical grudges between Musk, Altman, and others, but will also directly or indirectly affect the subsequent IPO processes of OpenAI and SpaceX—two trillion-dollar valuation companies.

This is the biggest non-technical variable in the current AI competition landscape, and it may profoundly influence the future power map of the AI world.

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