The jury took their seats in Courtroom 9 of the Oakland federal courthouse in California yesterday, with nine individuals serving as "advisory jurors" to attend a trial expected to last four weeks and ultimately provide Judge Rogers with a recommendation. Today, on Tuesday, opening statements are set to begin.
On the same day as the jury selection yesterday, OpenAI announced a new revised agreement with Microsoft. This agreement ended one thing. Microsoft's exclusive licensing of OpenAI's intellectual property is no more. This happens to be the final lock OpenAI put on itself when it transitioned to a "limited-profit" structure in 2019.
What Exactly Is Musk Suing For?
Reuters reports and CNBC's trial diary had previously outlined a list of charges in the two weeks leading up to the trial. When Musk initially filed suit in 2024, he brought forward 26 allegations, ranging from securities fraud and racketeering (RICO) to antitrust. As of today's trial, only two remain: unjust enrichment and breach of charitable trust.
The remaining 24 claims were either dismissed by the judge during the motion stage or voluntarily dropped by Musk himself. Just days before the trial, he voluntarily withdrew the portion of the charges related to "fraud," focusing the case on the most central and straightforward argument: "OpenAI promised me in the past to always be nonprofit," and now it is not.
For this statement, Musk's claim reaches up to $134 billion. According to his complaint, the compensation would all go back to OpenAI's nonprofit division, but he demands the ousting of Ultraman and Brockman, along with the reversal of the entire profitization restructuring. This is the "true core" of this lawsuit. Its target is not stock distribution. It is the OpenAI entity itself, and who it truly belongs to.
Judge Gonzalez Rogers divided the trial into two phases. The first is to establish liability, to be concluded by mid-May. If liability is established, then the damages phase will follow. The jury only participates in the first phase and solely in an advisory capacity. The final judgment rests with the judge. This means that for Musk, winning the "narrative battle" is more crucial than winning the "compensation" battle. It is about convincing the jury that "this company made a promise to donors in the past and then systematically dismantled that promise." As long as these nine individuals agree, the judge will piece together the rest for him.
OpenAI's strategy is nearly a mirror image. They aim to persuade the jury that Musk's true motive for filing the lawsuit is competitive jealousy, unrelated to trust violations. On the day of the jury selection, the official OpenAI account fired the first shot: "We cannot wait to present our evidence in court; the truth and the law are on our side. This lawsuit has always been a groundless, jealousy-driven competitive suppression... We finally have the opportunity for Musk to testify under oath in front of a California jury."
Pay attention to the phrase "make Musk testify." This is a strategy. What OpenAI truly wants is to portray Musk as the "founder of xAI who lost to OpenAI" in this public courtroom known as X. Convincing the judge is secondary. This way, ordinary Californians on the jury will enter the courtroom with this filter.
How was OpenAI's "lock" dismantled?
To understand why Musk is so angry, you first need to understand the three locks that OpenAI set for itself in 2019, each with a clear design intent.
You'll notice one thing. The OpenAI of 2019 was proving to its donors, "Even though we want to make money, there is a limit to how much we will make, and we must stop at a certain point." The OpenAI of April 27, 2026, is proving to its investors, "We have no brakes whatsoever."
The explanation of the profit cap is most direct. A 2025 employee letter from Altman stated, "The 'profit limit' structure is reasonable in a world with only one AGI company and no longer applies when there is competition." In simple terms: There are competitors now, so I need to be able to make more money.
The dismantling of the AGI trigger clause is more subtle. Originally, "Achieving AGI terminates Microsoft's commercial license," meaning AGI is for public good, belongs to humanity, and OpenAI will not privatize it. The rephrased version has AGI entrusted to an "independent expert group," extends Microsoft's authorization to 2032, specifies "models post-AGI," and allows Microsoft to independently pursue AGI. This is a version where even the key to "defining who AGI is" has been rekeyed.
The last lock is the exclusive license. Its dismantling occurred at the moment Musk's jury took their seats. It is completely decoupled from "OpenAI's technical progress," meaning that even if OpenAI were to publicly announce tomorrow that AGI had been achieved, no commercial terms would change as a result.
Musk's side will argue in court that this was a deliberate dismantling of protective measures. OpenAI's side will argue that this was a necessary adjustment in a competitive environment. But there is one thing that both sides will not dispute. The 2019 "self-restraint list" has not a single item left today.
Why do so many people hate "Scam Altman"?
On the day of the jury selection, X, was much livelier than the courtroom. Two hours after the official OpenAI account fired shots, Musk launched a rapid seven-tweet counterattack. Fast-paced, heavy-handed language, and a tight rhythm. A typical Muskian rapid-fire mode. He gave a nickname to Altman: Scam Altman.
He also retweeted a video clip of OpenAI's former board member, Helen Toner, who in this video podcast said, "Sam is a liar."
"Sam is a liar," this sentence was not first said by Musk. When OpenAI's former CTO, Mira Murati, resigned, she mentioned that during Altman's "failed coup," Ilya Sutskever had said it, and Jan Leike had also publicly said it when resigning with the entire alignment team.
There are three groups of people who dislike Sam Altman, each with different reasons.
The first group is the former OpenAI board. Their defining moment was the five-day dismissal turmoil in November 2023. The board's wording was "not always candid in communication with the board."
What exactly did they catch? In May 2024, Helen Toner publicly stated that the board learned from Twitter that their company had released a product that would reshape the global AI industry. She also said Altman had concealed his ownership of the OpenAI Startup Fund, repeatedly stating publicly, "I have no financial interest in the company," until forced to admit it in April 2024.
Repeatedly provided inaccurate information to the board on security procedures. Two executives reported Altman's "psychological abuse" to the board and provided screenshot evidence of "lying and manipulation." After Toner published a research paper that OpenAI did not like, Altman even attempted to push her out of the board.
The second group is the former OpenAI security faction.
In May 2024, OpenAI's "alignment super-team" almost disintegrated overnight. Leading the resignation was Jan Leike, one of OpenAI's most senior AI safety researchers. His resignation letter written on X was one of the sharpest resignation essays in the English AI community that year, stating that "security culture and processes have given way to shiny products."
Next was Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI co-founder and Chief Scientist, one of the key instigators of the failed coup. Following him, CTO Mira Murati (who briefly took over the company during the Ultraman firing), Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew, and Vice President of Research Barret Zoph all resigned in the same week. The "Non-Disparagement Agreement" scandal broke out afterward. Departing employees were asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement or else forfeit their equity.
The third group is the Old Guard of Silicon Valley, the most difficult to define and the largest.
They include the likes of Musk, early donors from 2015, true believers in the "non-profit mission" among OpenAI's early employees, many angel investors who took bets on early startups in Silicon Valley, and a sizable portion of neutral observers who saw OpenAI as "a common human asset."
What unites this group is that they have paid a non-monetary price for OpenAI's commitment—reputation, time, trust, social capital. And what they found most unforgivable about Ultraman was very specific: every time OpenAI unlocked one of its "locks," Ultraman would say, "This is for the mission."
When the profit cap was lifted, he said, "To ensure OpenAI continues to invest in AGI research"; when the AGI trigger clause was rewritten, he said, "To ensure OpenAI can fulfill its mission post-AGI"; when the Microsoft exclusivity was canceled, he said, "To enable OpenAI to move towards a broader cooperative ecosystem."
That's also why a portion of Silicon Valley reluctantly sided with Musk in this lawsuit.
The Weight of Commitment in Silicon Valley, Revealed Four Weeks Later
By this point, you probably see it clearly. They are not fighting for money.
Money is OpenAI's thing. In 2026, Ultraman is the CEO of OpenAI, a privately held AI company valued at over $500 billion, not lacking. In 2026, xAI for Musk has entered the Grok 5 era, with Anthropic as his goal to surpass, OpenAI is what he wants to exceed, he is not lacking.
What they are fighting for is something that only a few long-time Silicon Valley participants really care about. Can a non-profit organization, which has raised funds from society in the name of the "common good of humanity," accumulated ethical capital, recruited talent, and obtained regulatory exemptions, rewrite itself over a decade into a regular for-profit company jointly controlled by a CEO and VCs?
If this is allowed, every future AI startup will be able to do the same. "Non-profit" will become a cheap early narrative tool, used to get through news headlines, regulation, employee recruitment, and then quietly dismantled when the valuation is high enough.
If Musk wins, Silicon Valley may experience a long-lost sense of embarrassment. What you said in 2015 will still be quoted verbatim in 2026, making you testify under oath in a California federal court. If OpenAI wins, the world will continue to operate in the same way as Silicon Valley has for the past decade. Early-stage storytelling, late-stage scalability, and in between, responsible for dismantling the agreements between storytelling and scalability.
We will have an answer in about four weeks. But the words "Scam Altman" have already been engraved on social media, and regardless of how the judgment goes, they will linger. The reason Altman is so disliked is that he makes those who believe in him feel deceived. How much money is made is secondary.
And being deceived is something that cannot be undone by a judgment.
Welcome to join the official BlockBeats community:
Telegram Subscription Group: https://t.me/theblockbeats
Telegram Discussion Group: https://t.me/BlockBeats_App
Official Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia
