Musk Lawyers Press Altman on $2 Billion Stakes and Indirect OpenAI Equity
Testimony in Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI turned Tuesday to Sam Altman's personal investments and his prior statements about ownership. Musk's lawyers said Altman disclosed more than $2 billion in stakes in companies that do business with OpenAI, including roughly one-third of Helion Energy valued at about $1.65 billion, and confronted him with his 2023 Senate testimony that he had "no equity in OpenAI." Altman said he held an indirect interest through a Y Combinator fund, that the Senate statement reflected his understanding of direct equity, and declined to characterize it as untruthful.
The lawyers also said Altman had served as Helion's board chair while recommending OpenAI enter a deal with the company. Altman said OpenAI's 2024 scaled deployment agreement with Helion was a roadmap for potential future power purchases, that OpenAI has never bought or received power from Helion, and that he was recused on both sides and did not sign it. The questioning broadened a trial that earlier focused on Altman's testimony that Musk sought total control of OpenAI during 2017 talks over a for-profit structure and later declined to invest.
From the sources (25 posts)
@mtsliveSITUATION UPDATE: Week three of the Musk v. Altman trial begins today at 8 am PT. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is expected to testify today.
@mikeisaacgut morgen from downtown oakland on what may turn out to be the last week of the musk v openai (featuring microsoft!) trial it is cold and i have a a cold coffee to keep me cold
@mikeisaacMSFT exec says MSFT has "recognized $9 billion in revenue" throughout the total life of their partnership with openAI. that is a figure that comes from their 20 percent revenue share. and that's after, i think, accounting for their 13b in
@mtsliveLIVE TRIAL UPDATE: Microsoft corporate representative Michael Wetter confirmed that Microsoft's approval was required for OpenAI to convert to a public benefit corporation.
@mtsliveLIVE TRIAL UPDATE: Satya Nadella testified he received a February 2018 email from Sam Altman informing him that Elon Musk had left OpenAI's board and that the company had created a new for-profit subsidiary.
@mikeisaacNadella, who was yanked out of a meeting when Altman was fired in 2023: "I was pretty surprised to say the least. b/c there was no reach out to me from the board, which i thought would be a pretty obvious thing to do." customers started
@mtsliveLIVE TRIAL UPDATE: Satya Nadella testified that IP access was central to Microsoft's decision to partner with OpenAI. "Without it, it wouldn't make any sense. We were not investing in OpenAI just as an investment -- there was an IP elemen
@mikeisaacdamn. Nadella, when told of new CEO being named at OAI, said "okay great we will support you and also we are going to create a competing company by hiring sam and greg and the gang." cold blooded
@mtsliveLIVE TRIAL UPDATE: Satya Nadella testified that if AGI is achieved, the entire Microsoft-OpenAI partnership agreement would be dissolved, with the nonprofit board of OpenAI solely deciding when that threshold is reached.
@mtsliveLIVE TRIAL UPDATE: Satya Nadella testified that Elon Musk never contacted him to raise objections to Microsoft's 2019 OpenAI partnership, the 2020 GPT-3 license, or the 2023 investment, despite the two having each other's phone numbers.
@mikeisaacnadella on how he feels about the OpenAI investment: "Im very proud that we took the risk and were willing to sponsor this fledgling lab at the time….and start, in fact, all the innovation happening today...and that it has created one of
@mtsliveLIVE TRIAL UPDATE: Satya Nadella testified that Microsoft hosts Elon Musk's xAI model Grok-4 on Azure, a partnership that continued even after Musk sued Microsoft. Nadella said Musk retweeted the announcement and thanked him.
@mtsliveLIVE TRIAL UPDATE: On cross-examination, Satya Nadella confirmed to Musk's attorneys that for-profit activities at a nonprofit are subservient to the nonprofit's mission.
@garymarcus🚨BREAKING: Ilya just confirmed under oath what he saw: Sam lying. And he confirmed that he thought it was appropriate to fire Altman for it. And that he had been concerned for about Sam for a long time. 100% confirming what I had been sa
@garymarcus🚨 In his testimony just now, at the Musk-OpenAI trial, Satya Nadella came off as shrewd, calm, and (mostly) honest, an impressive leader – but also selectively blind. How? He seemed unable to believe that the board doubted Sam’s candor, or
@garymarcusRT @globeandmail: Ex-OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever claims to have collected proof of Sam Altman’s alleged dishonesty
@cnbcOpenAI trial updates: Board chair Taylor continues testimony, Altman set to take stand
@zeffmaxGood morning from an oakland court. Last few days of the Musk v Altman trial are upon us. Sam Altman is set to testify today. Last night, news broke that a Congressional committee was seeking information about his potential financial confl
@mikeisaacsuper interesting: Musk side produces an email showing that taylor was approached on the sunday after sam was fired for a board seat Taylor testified that he was unaware of what was going on inside the company but that he would not serve o
@mtsliveLIVE TRIAL UPDATE: Bret Taylor, chairman of the OpenAI Foundation, confirmed under cross-examination that as of October 2025 the nonprofit had no full-time employees and none focused on developing safe AGI.
@mtsliveLIVE TRIAL UPDATE: Sam Altman has taken the stand.
@mtsliveLIVE TRIAL UPDATE: Asked directly about accusations that he stole a charity, Sam Altman said the framing was difficult to comprehend. "We created the largest or one of the largest charities in the world. This foundation is now doing incre
@mtsliveLIVE TRIAL UPDATE: Sam Altman testified he contributed approximately $3.75M in cash to OpenAI at founding, gave equity interests to early employees, and donated $17.5M to an associated universal basic income study.
@mtsliveLIVE TRIAL UPDATE: Sam Altman testified he was never Elon Musk's employee and rejected the characterization of OpenAI as Musk's startup. "I would not agree with that characterization at all."
@mikeisaacAltman says Musk once said he would potentially pass control of OpenAI to his children upon his death. huh!