Greg Brockman testifies that Elon Musk threatened to cut funding and physically confronted him over control of OpenAI in 2017

In August 2017, Brockman and Ilya Sutskever met Musk at his estate in Hillsborough to discuss OpenAI's future. Musk wanted sole control of a for-profit arm, but Brockman and Sutskever proposed shared control instead. After rejecting their offer, Musk 'stood up and stormed around the table,' Brockman testified, saying 'I actually thought he was going to hit me, physically attack me.' Musk then said he would cut off his funding of the nonprofit until Brockman and Sutskever quit and left the room.

The confrontation reflects what OpenAI characterizes as Musk's repeated 'erratic behavior.' Brockman also recalled that Musk criticized an early AI chatbot version shown to him by researcher Alec Radford, calling the system 'so stupid,' which left Radford 'absolutely crushed' and 'demoralized' to the point he almost quit the AI research field.

Musk contends his roughly $38 million in donations to OpenAI were abused by Brockman and others on the path to creating the $852 billion for-profit venture. Brockman, CEO Sam Altman, and OpenAI deny any wrongdoing. A jury in Musk v. Altman could begin deliberating on an advisory ruling as soon as next week.