Elon Musk vs. Sam Altman: What to know as OpenAI trial opens

Here's the weather forecast for the next few weeks inside the federal courthouse in Oakland, Calif. — cloudy with a chance of tech world tea spillage.

Jury selection began Monday in Musk v. Altman, the Elon Musk-Sam Altman courtroom showdown over a lawsuit Musk filed two years ago. But the 12 citizens chosen may not be ready for the level of messy drama that's about to unfold.

How messy? Corporate litigation lawyer Andrew Staltman, who's been watching Musk's lawsuit unfold for years, has offered the most memorable summary so far. "We're about to witness the landing of the Hindenberg on the deck of the Titanic," Staltman told the Washington Post. "It's going to be crazy and nasty."

That might sound like an over-the-top teaser for a pilot episode of "Real Housewives of Silicon Valley." But if anything, it undersells the reality-show fireworks that may go off during this trial. Altman (a noted fabulist, as this month's Ronan Farrow expose in the New Yorker made clear) and Musk (who has failed to keep his promises multiple times, most recently promises about Tesla's full self-driving capabilities) look set to talk about each other under oath.

What's at stake in the Musk-Altman trial

At stake in the long-awaited trial is whether Musk was defrauded in 2019. That's the year Altman, who co-founded OpenAI with Musk and others, led the company's pivot from a nonprofit to a for-profit enterprise.

If the Oakland jurors agree with Musk's fraud accusations, that could throw a major spanner into OpenAI's expected 2026 IPO (the company is currently valued somewhere north of $850 billion). Musk's lawyers have claimed OpenAI owes Musk anywhere up to $138 billion.

But when it comes to these billionaires, it's not necessarily about the money. Musk, after all, has sued Altman and colleagues personally, rather than OpenAI the company. Altman and Musk have a relationship for which Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, a mutual friend who also shows up in court documents, might as well have created the "it's complicated" label.

If you need convincing, consider the tea that has already been spilled. Here's a quick guide to the most eyebrow-raising revelations from court documents so far — and this is all stuff that the federal judge, Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, has already deemed central to the case.

1. What did Musk do at Burning Man?

Many dreams and schemes are hatched between members of the tech elite at the annual desert festival in northern Nevada; for many in Silicon Valley, Musk included, Burning Man is less a vacation and more a religion. But never has one of those rambling conversations become so central to a lawsuit.

In particular, we're talking about Burning Man 2017, when the theme was "Radical Ritual" — said by the Burning Man organization to encompass "the ambiguous ground that lies between reverence and ridicule, faith and belief, the absurd and the stunningly sublime."

That description could equally apply to the lawsuit, and in particular, Altman's lawyers' attempt to question whether Musk was even capable of recalling OpenAI negotiations while he was partying hard in the desert.

"Do you recall, at Burning Man 2017, ingesting rhino ket?" That's what Altman's lawyers asked Musk during his deposition. Musk said he didn't know what rhino ket was; it's amphetamines mixed with ketamine, apparently, as well as the name of a 2024 song by Irish hip-hop group Kneecap.

"It is plainly relevant that Musk spent multiple days at Burning Man in the midst of negotiations he now claims not to remember," Altman's lawyers have argued. "It speaks to the seriousness with which he took the discussions, and his focus, or lack thereof, on the future of OpenAI."

Judge Rogers has ruled that Musk's ketamine use is out of bounds in itself — asking about it could be "unduly prejudicial," she wrote in a pre-trial ruling — but that a "supposed lapse in memory" based on that usage could be relevant. Musk has said he takes prescribed ketamine to treat depression.

Musk's attendance at Burning Man, however, "is relevant to the attention he paid to his negotiations with OpenAI, which supposedly occurred during the same period," Rogers notes.

What this means: "Rhino ket" won't be mentioned in court, but less specific "memory lapses" might. And get ready for the trial to enter the surreal world of Black Rock City — full of art cars, wild costumes, and black light body paint — as Musk's experience nine years ago is reconstructed. What happens at Burning Man may not stay at Burning Man.

2. Was Musk's co-parent an OpenAI spy?

Reality shows often offer some form of baby mama drama. But in this case, spilling the tea on one of Musk's many co-parents — Shivon Zilis — has been deemed more than mere gossip.

That's because Zilis, a VC and AI expert, is way more than just the mother of four Musk kids. (Musk has a total of 14 children with four co-parents.) She is what Altman called in his deposition "an Elon whisperer" — a longtime ally who has since worked with him at Tesla and Neuralink. Zilis and Musk met after she joined OpenAI in 2016. She was the youngest member of the OpenAI board before she stepped down in 2023.

In 2018, according to a text exchange in court documents, Zilis asked Musk if she should "stay close and friendly to OpenAI to keep info flowing" or "begin to disassociate" from the company. Musk, who had just stepped down from the OpenAI board at the time, responded: "close and friendly."

Musk's lawyers, seeking to prove that a crucial Microsoft investment in OpenAI violated OpenAI's nonprofit structure, are relying in part on Zilis' testimony. But OpenAI says Zilis is compromised. Rogers has ruled that the relationship between Musk and Zilis is "highly relevant to Zilis' credibility." Zilis stated in her deposition that their relationship is currently romantic.

What this means: Look for Altman's lawyers to argue that the romance part stretches back to 2016 and wasn't disclosed at the time. So we may be wading through personal text messages between the two, learning curious details like the fact that Zilis has Musk saved in her phone under the name "Schrodinger's Cat."

3. Did Mark Zuckerberg censor posts for Musk?

Altman's lawyers may seek to prove that even the biggest names in the tech world tend to kowtow to Musk. If the litigious tech celeb has Silicon Valley running in terror of him, the reasoning goes, that makes it less likely that he was duped by Altman in the restructuring of OpenAI — and more likely that this lawsuit is frivolous.

Entered into court documents already are several times in which Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Meta, sought to curry Musk's favor. And this after Musk ridiculed Zuckerberg online, then publicly challenged the Meta chief to a cage match in 2023 and 2024.

"Looks like DOGE is making progress," Zuckerberg texted Musk in Feb. 2025, as the highly controversial agency was taking a wrecking ball to the U.S. government and its employees were downloading social security data. Then he basically offered to cover up the real names of people like alleged cybercriminal Big Balls.

Disclosing names of government employees isn't illegal; they are supposed to be working for (and get paid by) the people. But that was hardly the spirit of Zuckerberg's message. "I've got our teams on alert to take down content doxxing or threatening the people on your team," Zuckerberg wrote. Musk hearted the message, then asked Zuckerberg if he was interested in joining his OpenAI takeover bid. The two agreed to talk on the phone, although we don't know if a call actually took place.

The Musk-led $97 billion takeover bid, announced several days later, was dismissed by Altman with a clap back that typifies their relationship. "No thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion," Altman wrote on X.

4. 'Jeff is a tool': Is Silicon Valley basically high school?

Altman's jibe is just the tip of a very Mean Girls iceberg. Musk v. Altman contains many such cases. In 2016, for example, the two men were discussing whether OpenAI should use Microsoft or Amazon for its server farms — a crucial question, as it turned out. Musk opted for Microsoft over Amazon, based, it seems, on the personalities of their respective CEOs.

"I think Jeff [Bezos] is a bit of a tool and Satya [Nadella] is not, so I slightly prefer Microsoft," Musk wrote in an email. In his deposition, when asked about the "tool" comment, Musk doubled down before suggesting it wasn't a permanent condition: "He can be, you know ... there's a redemption arc for all of us."

As if this trial wasn't high school enough, there's also a diary involved, that of Greg Brockman, OpenAI president and co-founder. "This is the only chance we have to get out from Elon," Brockman wrote in a partly-redacted entry filed by Musk's lawyers. This was in 2017, when OpenAI was starting to consider restructuring. "Financially what will take me to $1 B[illion]?" he added.

Brockman, who was compelled to turn over the diary in March, cried foul on X.

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But ultimately it doesn't get more high school than the Altman-Musk relationship itself. "It really fucking hurts when you publicly attack OpenAI," Altman wrote to Musk in 2023, according to this filing. Why? Because "you're my hero."

Incredibly, Musk texted back an apology. But then he added a phrase that baffled Altman, and that, if it remains his belief in the courtroom, practically guarantees fireworks between the two.

"It is certainly not my intention to be hurtful, for which I apologize," Musk wrote. "But the fate of civilization is at stake."