- Sam Altman testified in the ongoing OpenAI trial
- He claimed Elon Musk wanted “total control” over the company during its early years
- Altman alleged that Musk suggested he would pass OpenAI to his children
Sam Altman’s time on the witness stand during Elon Musk’s lawsuit over OpenAI was no less heated than Musk’s own Terminator-infused claims, if less cinematic in references. He described Musk to the jurors in Oakland, California, as a man unwilling to build OpenAI unless he could ultimately dominate it .
The OpenAI CEO alleged Musk pushed aggressively for control during the company’s early years and resisted structures that distributed authority among multiple leaders. According to Altman, Musk believed only he could be trusted to make the difficult long-term decisions surrounding artificial intelligence.
Musk “felt very strongly that if we were going to form a for-profit he needed to have total control over it initially,” Altman said. “He only trusted himself to make non-obvious decisions that were going to turn out to be correct.”
The testimony landed as one of the most dramatic moments yet in the closely watched Musk v. Altman trial, which has evolved into a sprawling public argument over money, power, ego, and who gets to shape the future of AI.
According to Altman, somebody asked Musk what would happen to that control after his death. Musk replied that, “I haven’t thought about it a ton, but maybe control should pass to my children.”
For a company originally founded around the idea that advanced AI should benefit humanity broadly, the exchange sounded downright feudal.
AI power struggle
The courtroom battle technically centers on Musk’s claim that OpenAI betrayed its original nonprofit mission through its commercial partnership with Microsoft. Musk argues the company evolved from a public interest research lab into a profit-driven AI giant focused on commercial dominance rather than openness.
But the testimony unfolding in court increasingly suggests the deeper conflict began years earlier and had less to do with nonprofit structures than with fundamentally different ideas about control.
Altman’s version of events portrays Musk as somebody who viewed concentrated authority as necessary for building artificial general intelligence safely and effectively. Altman pushed the opposite philosophy. He testified that one of OpenAI’s founding principles was that no single individual should possess unchecked control over AGI systems, regardless of intent.
That distinction now feels central to the entire modern AI industry. Power increasingly centers around a handful of executives and companies, regardless of Altman’s goals. OpenAI itself became one of the most valuable and influential AI firms on Earth, partly because of enormous outside investment and increasingly closed commercial products. Musk left OpenAI in 2018 before later launching xAI.
The irony of a trial between these two, who once publicly framed OpenAI as a safeguard against concentrated AI power, is palpable. Altman described Musk as deeply skeptical of governance structures that diluted his authority. He testified that he had seen enough startup control disputes over the years to doubt Musk would willingly surrender power later, once a company succeeded.
AI control
The business dispute is being couched in philosophical terms for a reason. The jurors are hearing a debate between competing visions of how the AI industry should operate as much as one over contract violations.
Musk’s legal team argues OpenAI abandoned transparency and public benefit in pursuit of enormous commercial success. Altman’s testimony suggests Musk wanted personal authority from the beginning and became frustrated when he could not secure it.
As petty as some of it feels, the stakes of the trial are high. Musk’s lawsuit threatens billions in potential damages and could reshape OpenAI’s corporate future if successful. But the testimony already reveals that all the high-minded arguments over advanced technology can often be a fight over who gets to control it.
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