Altman testifies Musk wanted OpenAI to pass to his children

Sam Altman took the stand in Elon Musk's lawsuit challenging OpenAI's corporate structure. Altman described a pivotal 2017 meeting where Musk, when asked what would happen if he died while controlling a hypothetical OpenAI for-profit, responded: "Maybe OpenAI should pass to my children." Altman said this raised concerns because OpenAI was dedicated to keeping advanced AI out of a single person's control, and his Y Combinator experience taught him that founders with control rarely give it up. He also testified that Musk's management style—requiring co-founders Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever to stack-rank researchers and "take a chainsaw" to layoffs—demoralized key researchers and damaged the organization's culture for years.

Musk's lawyers argued OpenAI's nonprofit foundation, now holding ~$200 billion in assets, had no full-time employees until early this year, suggesting the commercial arm overshadowed safety commitments. But Altman countered that the foundation's conversion of equity to cash was complex and only completed in the 2025 restructuring. OpenAIs board chair Bret Taylor also testified on the delay. Altman framed himself as protecting the "sweat equity" of co-founders, while Musk left to start competing AI initiatives at Tesla and xAI. Despite the tensions, Altman kept Musk updated and sought his funding, including a 2018 Microsoft investment discussion that Altman described as a "good vibes meeting" where Musk showed memes.