Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president and co-founder, didn’t mince words during the high-stakes trial pitting Elon Musk against his former venture. Musk does not know AI. That’s what Brockman told the federal court in Oakland on Tuesday, wrapping up his second day of testimony in a case that could reshape the AI landscape. He knows rockets. He knows electric cars. But AI? A major concern back then, and still now, according to Brockman. The blunt assessment came amid Musk’s lawsuit accusing OpenAI leaders of betraying the nonprofit’s founding mission by chasing billions in a for-profit pivot now valued at $852 billion. The Information first reported Brockman’s pointed remark, which underscores the personal venom fueling this showdown between two of tech’s most powerful figures.
And yet. The testimony painted a picture far more complex than a simple expertise gap. Brockman recounted a 2017 meeting at Musk’s ‘haunted mansion’ where tensions boiled over Musk’s demand for 62.5% control of OpenAI. I truly thought he was going to physically attack me, Brockman said, describing Musk’s fury after the board rejected his bid. The confrontation followed celebratory drinks with Amber Heard; it ended with Musk halting funding. OpenAI counters that Musk left voluntarily after failing to dominate, then launched rival xAI. Wired detailed the explosive exchange, highlighting how OpenAI views Musk’s behavior as erratic.
Flash forward to days before the trial kicked off last week. Musk messaged Brockman probing settlement interest. Brockman suggested dropping all claims. Musk fired back: By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America. If you insist, so it will be. The exchange, revealed in court filings, shows stakes beyond money—Musk seeks Altman and Brockman’s removal from OpenAI. Yahoo Finance covered the threat, which OpenAI lawyers pushed into evidence.
Brockman’s own words haunt him too. Musk’s attorneys grilled him on 2017 journal entries: warm to steal the nonprofit from [Musk] to convert to b corp without him. Musk’s story will correctly be that we weren’t honest with him in the end about still wanting to do for profit just without him. Brockman admitted skipping his $100,000 nonprofit pledge but now holds a $30 billion stake in the for-profit arm. It’d be wrong to steal the non-profit from him. That’d be pretty morally bankrupt, he wrote back then. Hypocrisy? Musk’s team thinks so. Fortune noted these damaging admissions from Monday’s testimony.
Musk pushes back hard. During his week-one stand, he admitted xAI trained Grok partly by distilling OpenAI’s GPT models—a terms-of-service violation, he shrugged, claiming everyone does it. He expects AI smarter than any human next year, calling AGI close. Here we are in 2026, AI is very smart. OpenAI knew of Musk’s Tesla AI work, Brockman testified, but worried he wouldn’t dedicate time to master it. Ilya [Sutskever] and I did not think that he was going to spend the time required. ABC7 News reported Musk’s AGI prediction; Bloomberg captured Brockman’s doubt.
But actions speak louder. xAI’s Colossus supercomputer—200,000 GPUs built in 92 days after initial 122-day ramp-up—powers Grok, outpacing rivals in scale. No one has come close to building at this magnitude and speed, xAI boasts on its site. Yet talent wars rage both ways. OpenAI snagged xAI infra head Uday Ruddarraju and engineer Mike Dalton, who built Colossus, plus Tesla’s David Lau and Meta’s Angela Fan for its scaling team. xAI poached Nvidia’s Ethan He for Grok 4. Reverse raids: Bezos lured xAI co-founder Kyle Kosic from OpenAI for Project Prometheus. xAI announced Colossus; poaching details from Wired via secondary reports, though Wired’s primary on hires confirms the frenzy.
Trial revelations keep coming. Brockman confirmed Musk backed a for-profit shift to fundraise $80 billion for a Mars city—his true aim, OpenAI claims. Musk was unaware of Brockman’s adjusted compensation or investments like Cerebras, where Brockman held stakes during acquisition talks. A Musk associate knew, but not Elon directly. Time was limited. Hard to get hold of him. The New York Times on Musk’s commercial push; The Wall Street Journal on hidden deals.
So where does this leave the AI race? OpenAI’s ChatGPT dominance faces Grok’s speed in coding, search, real-time data—verticals where xAI gains ground. Brockman’s stake ballooned on nonprofit donations, including Musk’s $38 million. Musk vows xAI will exceed on coding soon. Jury deliberations loom next week on an advisory ruling. Betrayal or business as usual? The court will say. But one thing’s clear. Expertise claims aside, both sides wield massive compute and cash. Humanity’s AI future hangs in the balance, wolves and sheep alike.
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