Musk-Altman feud shows AI is in the wrong hands

The tech world’s most high-profile courtroom drama this year, Musk v. Altman, boiled down to a bitter struggle over who gets to steer the future of artificial intelligence. Elon Musk argued that Sam Altman, his former co-founder at the now-dominant OpenAI, should not be trusted with that responsibility. Altman’s legal team responded by picking apart Musk’s own credibility. After three weeks of testimony, a jury needed just two hours to reach a verdict on Monday, tossing out Musk’s claims because the statute of limitations had expired.

Legally speaking, the entire proceeding amounted to a dead end. But the real verdict from the trial is far more troubling: Almost nobody in this story appears to be trustworthy. Some of the most influential figures in technology seem fundamentally incapable of dealing with one another honestly. If that’s the case, it forces a critical question: Why are these people in charge of a trillion-dollar industry that is poised to reshape nearly every aspect of our lives?

Both Musk and Altman testified that OpenAI was created to prevent powerful AI from falling into the wrong hands. Evidence and testimony showed the founding team deeply worried about who would ultimately control artificial general intelligence (AGI) , a term for AI that matches or exceeds human capability. Their primary fear was Google DeepMind and its leader, Demis Hassabis. Back in 2015, Altman admitted he had been wrestling with whether anything could “stop humanity from developing AI” and, concluding it was impossible, decided he wanted “someone other than google to do it first.”

The co-founders’ distrust of concentrated power was so strong that Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever nearly derailed a lucrative deal they feared would give Musk an “AI dictatorship.” In an email to Altman, they openly questioned his motives: “We haven’t been able to fully trust your judgements throughout this process … Is AGI truly your primary motivation? How does it connect to your political goals?”

Those fears proved prescient. A central focus of the trial was “the blip” , a five-day period in November 2023 when OpenAI’s board ousted Altman as CEO. Sutskever had spent over a year orchestrating the move, compiling a 52-page memo alleging “a consistent pattern of lying, undermining his execs, and pitting his execs against one another.” The implications went beyond corporate infighting. Former CTO Mira Murati testified in court that Altman told her OpenAI’s legal team had approved skipping a safety review for one of its models , a statement she later learned was false.

During closing arguments, Musk’s attorney Steven Molo highlighted the long list of people who had testified under oath that Altman was, in some way, a liar , all of them colleagues who had worked with him for years. “The defendants absolutely need you to believe Sam Altman,” Molo told the jury. “If you cannot trust him, if you don’t believe him, they cannot win. It’s that simple.”

But Musk, who now leads the competing lab xAI under his SpaceX umbrella, did not fare much better under scrutiny. Joshua Achiam, now OpenAI’s chief futurist, testified that Musk’s race to beat Google led him to take an “obviously unsafe and reckless” approach to achieving AGI. When he and others raised objections, Musk argued that OpenAI’s for-profit restructuring created incentives to ignore safety , yet his own xAI is for-profit and has, at best, a haphazard safety record. And despite championing openness, Musk was obsessive about maintaining control over OpenAI. In closing arguments, OpenAI attorney Sarah Eddy told the jury that Musk “wanted dominion over AGI.”

As one X user wryly observed, “if untrustworthyness had mass, putting Musk and Altman too close to one another would collapse the courtroom and all of earth into a black hole.”

OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On X, Musk posted a statement saying he planned to appeal.

The problem extends beyond Musk and Altman. Trial evidence showed Murati helped orchestrate Altman’s removal, then switched sides to support his reinstatement while appearing “totally uninterested” in disclosing her role. Shivon Zilis, a close Musk associate who served on OpenAI’s board, asked Musk if he’d “prefer I stay close and friendly to OpenAI to keep info flowing” during his departure , without revealing that she and Musk had two children together. Brockman’s diary entries were central to Musk’s case; at one point, he admitted Musk could “correctly” claim “we weren’t honest with him” if OpenAI made a for-profit shift without his involvement.

Musk v. Altman gave each man a platform to attack the other and, in theory, position himself as the more responsible steward of AI. But the clearer lesson is that several of the industry’s most recognizable names are, at best, naive , and, at worst, hypocrites with little concern for the consequences of their actions.

Public sentiment toward AI has never been lower. A Pew Research survey from last summer found that half of US adults say the “increased use of AI in daily life makes them feel more concerned than excited” , with only 10 percent feeling more excited than concerned. Many worries center on job loss, but protests against massive data center construction are also growing across the country. Some resistance has turned potentially violent, with individuals allegedly trying to attack Altman’s home on two separate occasions. And numerous tech CEOs themselves admit to having bunkers or other doomsday preparations in case things go badly.

These companies publicly promote AI as a tool that empowers users. Yet a 2025 Pew Research study found that nearly 60 percent of US adults feel they have little to no control over how AI is used in their lives. In the United States, meaningful government regulation , which could at least provide some external oversight , remains uncertain. And now, it is clearer than ever how far the AI industry’s biggest players will go to maintain their grip on power.

Amid the trial’s mountain of evidence, one document stands out as a rare moment when Altman and Musk offered to give up some authority. In March 2015, Altman emailed Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella with a simple request: Sign a letter he and Musk were drafting, calling on the US government to create “a new regulatory agency for AI safety” and address “the biggest risk to the continued existence of humanity that most people are ignoring.” Weeks later, Nadella responded to shut down the idea. The “issue of human safety and the control problem will become real issues,” he acknowledged. But executives, he insisted, should be pushing for “federal funding and encouragement of research,” not oversight. Altman quickly agreed. The letter, he promised, would be revised , leaving the possibility of regulating the AI industry “if and when.”