Musk 'was going to hit me,' OpenAI executive says at trial

Greg Brockman, president and co-founder of OpenAI, told a California jury Tuesday that billionaire Elon Musk essentially threatened him during a 2017 confrontation, testifying that the mogul stormed out after being denied absolute control of the then-nascent artificial intelligence firm.

"I actually thought he was going to hit me," Brockman claimed on the second day of his arraignment in the lawsuit Musk filed against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman.

Musk accuses the company of betraying its original nonprofit mission.

According to Musk, the company shifted to a for-profit structure and misappropriated its founding donation of $38 million to build a firm valued now at $850 billion.

OpenAI notes that Musk voluntarily withdrew after his failed attempt to take control of the company and has since become its direct rival through his own artificial intelligence startup, xAI.

Brockman also testified that when Musk announced his departure from OpenAI in February 2018, he told employees that he intended to develop AI at Tesla, without regard to safety.

"If the sheep are dictating safety and the wolves are not, then there's no purpose," Brockman claimed Musk allegedly told employees at the time.

OpenAI's defense team claims that the chronology of the case proves that Musk was fully aware of the company's business turnaround and that its lawsuit, filed in 2024, after it launched rival xAI, lacks merit.