Musk, Ultraman no primeiro dia de audiência do processo:整理 as declarações de ambas as partes, debates dos advogados, compreenda a luta pelo poder do OpenAI

Silicon Valley Century Trial officially opens, Musk personally appears in court to accuse OpenAI of deviating from its non-profit original purpose, turning towards profit maximization, and seeking damages up to 138 billion USD.

Silicon Valley Century Trial officially begins, Musk personally defends founding principles in court

This highly watched global technology industry landmark lawsuit has entered the jury trial phase at the Federal Court in Oakland, California. Tesla CEO Elon Musk testified in person on Tuesday, detailing to the 9-member jury his original motivation for founding OpenAI.

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Musk emphasized during the trial that the core meaning of this lawsuit is “saving humanity,” not personal gain. He recalled a conversation in 2015 with Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, at which he expressed deep concern over Google’s pursuit of artificial intelligence (AI) safety, fearing a destructive ending similar to the movie “Terminator.” To balance this potential threat, Musk claimed he conceived the prototype of OpenAI, even personally naming the company.

Image source: Business Insider Tesla CEO Elon Musk testified in person on Tuesday

According to court documents and Musk’s testimony, before 2016 he provided about 38 to 44 million USD in initial seed funding to OpenAI, which was still a non-profit organization at the time. Musk pointed out that he was actively recruiting top talent, including Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever, and used his influence to secure NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s first AI supercomputer, as well as personally contacting Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to obtain cloud computing resources.

Musk reiterated in his testimony that he was persuaded by Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, believing that OpenAI would remain non-profit forever and openly share its research code with the public.

Musk bluntly stated that today’s OpenAI has deviated from its original altruistic mission, transforming into a closed-source, profit-driven entity, which is a complete betrayal of its initial purpose.

From non-profit ideals to capital empire, core disputes in the hundred-billion-dollar lawsuit

Musk’s legal team described OpenAI’s transformation as a carefully planned “plundering charity” operation during opening statements. The lawyers accused Altman and Brockman of promising to build a more transparent and safer organization than a profit-driven enterprise, using this as bait to manipulate Musk into investing substantial funds and resources.

The core of the lawsuit revolves around OpenAI’s transition from a non-profit organization to a valuation of up to 852 billion USD, with Musk demanding the court replace the current leadership team, including CEO Altman and President Brockman. Furthermore, according to major foreign media reports, Musk has also proposed damages ranging from 138 billion to 180 billion USD, promising that if he wins, the entire amount will be donated back to OpenAI’s non-profit charitable division.

With the success of ChatGPT, OpenAI’s commercial value has rapidly inflated, and it is now planning a potentially landmark IPO that could push the company’s valuation beyond 1 trillion USD. Musk’s side believes that OpenAI’s deep partnership with Microsoft effectively makes the company a closed subsidiary of Microsoft.

Musk explained in court that although he supported establishing a profit-making branch to cope with huge computational costs, the premise was that profit should be subordinate to the non-profit organization, and the majority of value should not be extracted from charitable purposes.

He mentioned that there was discussion at the time about funding from Tesla or establishing a profit entity, with the core principle being “the tail cannot wag the dog,” meaning business interests should not dominate the company’s development.

Defense attorneys strongly counterattack, revealing Musk’s attempts to control the power map

Faced with Musk’s severe accusations, OpenAI’s legal counsel William Savitt launched a strong rebuttal during the trial.

The defense team argued that Musk’s lawsuit was driven by his failure to gain control of OpenAI. Savitt directly accused Musk of using his 1 billion USD donation pledge as leverage to bully the founding team members, forcing them to submit to Musk’s control demands.

Image source: Reuters OpenAI’s legal advisor William Savitt

Evidence disclosed by OpenAI shows that Musk proposed in 2018 to merge OpenAI into his electric vehicle company Tesla, viewing Tesla as OpenAI’s “cash cow,” and demanded to obtain an absolute majority of shares and control of the organization. When Altman, Brockman, and Sutskever rejected this proposal, Musk angrily left the board and turned to establish a competitor, xAI.

The defense further countered that Musk’s insistence on the so-called “non-profit mission” was hypocritical. They presented documents showing Musk had already recognized that to compete with giants like Google, OpenAI had to transform into a profit-oriented entity to raise billions of dollars.

Savitt sarcastically stated that Musk has never truly cared about AI safety or non-profit structures; what he really cares about is maintaining ultimate power. OpenAI emphasized that Musk’s current efforts are essentially aimed at suppressing competitors and trying to legally seize the technological dividends he once voluntarily abandoned.

This trial is expected to last about three weeks, during which Microsoft CEO Nadella, Altman, Brockman, and several early core engineers of OpenAI may testify, revealing the true story of this Silicon Valley power struggle.

Ecological impact shaken by judicial waves, global crypto crash and uncertain future of AI industry

As trial details are gradually exposed, the cryptocurrency project Worldcoin (now renamed World Network), closely associated with Altman, has suffered severe market shocks. Musk repeatedly mocked Altman on social media as “Scam Altman,” sparking widespread skepticism in the crypto community about Worldcoin’s token model, biometric data collection practices, and black market account trading.

Affected by this legal dispute, $WLD token’s price has fallen more than 98% from its all-time high, and even on the day of the trial opening, it dropped nearly 3%. On-chain detective ZachXBT also accused the project’s tokenomics, further fueling investor panic. The ripple effects of this lawsuit have spread across the entire blockchain and AI intersection, with markets closely watching whether Altman’s personal reputation will collapse as a result.

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Off the court, the scene remains dramatic, with large protests gathering outside Oakland court. Some hold anti-AI slogans, criticizing Musk and Altman as billionaires developing technologies that threaten employment and safety.

Image source: Fox Business Protesters holding anti-AI signs criticize Musk and Altman as billionaires developing technologies that threaten employment and safety

Legal analysts note that, since both sides hold significant social influence in the AI industry, choosing an entirely unbiased jury will be a major challenge. Current market predictions estimate about a 40% chance of Musk winning, with most experts expecting the case to end in settlement or court order for OpenAI to return more rights to the foundation. Regardless of the outcome, this lawsuit has profoundly revealed how the AI industry, in its pursuit of technological peaks, repeatedly struggles between idealism, power desire, and capital expansion, and how it will determine the control of core human technologies for decades to come.