A high-stakes courtroom battle in California has revealed fresh details about early tensions inside OpenAI, including claims that Elon Musk once pushed for full control of the organization partly to fund an ambitious plan to colonize Mars.
Testifying during the ongoing trial in Oakland, Greg Brockman said Musk supported converting OpenAI into a for-profit company but wanted to lead it himself to help raise as much as $80 billion for Mars colonization efforts. The remarks came as part of Musk’s lawsuit challenging OpenAI’s transition away from its original nonprofit structure.
According to a report by Reuters, the case centers on Musk’s claim that he was misled into contributing about $38 million to OpenAI under its nonprofit mission, only for the organization to later pivot toward a profit-driven model.
He is now seeking $150 billion in damages, which he says should be directed back to the nonprofit, and is calling for the removal of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Brockman from leadership roles.
Brockman told the court that as early as 2017, Musk had expressed concerns that a nonprofit structure would struggle to raise the vast sums needed to develop advanced artificial intelligence systems.
According to his testimony, Musk argued that restructuring and placing him at the helm would make it easier to secure the necessary funding.
Musk, who left OpenAI’s board in 2018, has since become one of the company’s most vocal critics.
His broader ambitions in space exploration are closely tied to SpaceX, the rocket company he founded, which aims to eventually establish human settlements on Mars.
Meanwhile, OpenAI continues to scale rapidly, with Brockman stating that the company plans to spend around $50 billion on computing infrastructure in 2026 alone.
The outcome of the trial could have far-reaching implications not only for OpenAI’s governance but also for the future direction of the global AI industry.
The case underscores the deepening divide between Musk and the company he once helped create, as competing visions for artificial intelligence and humanity’s future play out in court.
