Sam Altman testifies that Elon Musk proposed handing OpenAI to his children during 2017 funding discussions

During testimony in Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman recounted a pivotal 2017 moment when Musk suggested that if he died while controlling a hypothetical OpenAI for-profit, 'maybe OpenAI should pass to my children.' Altman said Musk's focus on controlling the initial for-profit entity gave him pause because OpenAI was dedicated to keeping advanced AI out of the hands of a single person.

Altman testified that Musk's management approach—requiring cofounders Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever to stack-rank researchers and 'take a chainsaw through a bunch'—damaged the organization's culture and demotivated key researchers. Altman stated: 'I don't think Mr. Musk understood how to run a good research lab.'

OpenAI's foundation now has assets on the order of $200 billion, according to testimony from board chair Bret Taylor, who explained the foundation lacked full-time employees until earlier this year because of challenges converting OpenAI equity to cash, resolved through the organization's 2025 restructuring.