Marc Toberoff, attorney for Elon Musk, arrives at US District Court in Oakland, California, Monday, April 27, 2026. GODOFREDO A. VÁSQUEZ / AP
Elon Musk's courtroom showdown with Sam Altman got underway on Monday, April 27, with the start of jury selection in a trial over the billionaire's accusation that his OpenAI co-founders betrayed a non-profit mission to build artificial intelligence for the good of humanity and not for the money.
The legal clash in a courtroom across the bay from San Francisco pits the world's richest person against a startup Musk once backed and now competes with in the booming AI sector.
OpenAI's ChatGPT is a formidable rival to the chatbot Grok, made by Musk's xAI lab. "This is a tech soap opera that all investors will be watching," Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note to investors. "There will be a lot of dirt and slings thrown around in court between Musk and Altman and that is not a good thing for anyone involved...but Musk has made this personal."
While Musk's lawsuit is part of a feud between him and OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman, it spotlights a debate as to whether AI should ultimately serve to benefit a privileged few or society as a whole.
