Primeiro dia de audiência no processo entre Musk e Ultraman:整理 declarações de ambas as partes, debates dos advogados, compreenda a disputa pelo poder do OpenAI

Silicon Valley Century Trial officially opens, Elon Musk personally testifies accusing 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 tech industry lawsuit has officially entered the jury trial phase at the federal court in Oakland, California. Tesla CEO Elon Musk personally testified 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 time he was deeply concerned about 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 personally testifies 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, the core dispute of 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 large amounts of funds and resources.

The lawsuit’s core revolves around OpenAI’s transition from a non-profit organization to a capital giant valued at up to 852 billion USD. Musk demands the court replace the current leadership team, including CEO Altman and President Brockman. Additionally, according to major foreign media reports, Musk has also filed damages claims 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 charity division.

With the success of ChatGPT, OpenAI’s commercial value has rapidly inflated, and it is now planning a potentially trillion-dollar valuation IPO. 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 about Tesla providing funding 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 into submission, demanding control over the organization.

Image source: Reuters OpenAI legal counsel William Savitt

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

The defense further argued 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 entity to raise billions.

Savitt sarcastically stated that Musk has never truly cared about AI safety or non-profit structures; what he really cares about is maintaining maximum power himself. 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, with testimonies from Microsoft CEO Nadella, Altman, Brockman, and several early core engineers of OpenAI, aiming to reveal the true story of this Silicon Valley power struggle.

The ecosystem affected by judicial ripples, global cryptocurrency plummets, and the 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 impacts. 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.

Due to 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.

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Outside the court, the scene is equally dramatic, with large protests gathering at the Oakland courthouse. 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 slogans 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, selecting an 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 forcing 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 will determine the control of core human technologies for decades to come.