GoKawiilA combination image shows Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in San Francisco, California, U.S., on November 16, 2023 and Elon Musk, Chief Executive Officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X, formerly known as Twitter during Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre in Paris, France, June 16, 2023.
Jury selection is beginning in the high-stakes legal battle between longtime friends turned rivals Elon Musk and Sam Altman at a federal courthouse in Oakland, California.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is overseeing the proceedings, starting Monday, between the world's richest person and the CEO of OpenAI. Nine jurors will be seated and there will be no alternates, according to a March filing. CNBC is in the courtroom for the proceedings.
Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015, sued the company, Altman and Greg Brockman, OpenAI's president, in 2024, alleging they reneged on their commitments to keep the artificial intelligence lab a nonprofit and follow its charitable mission. OpenAI has repeatedly dismissed Musk's lawsuit as "baseless." Musk left OpenAI's board in 2018, and five years later started xAI as a rival, merging that company with SpaceX earlier this year.
Musk has sought a number of different remedies over the course of the case, including the removal of Altman and Brockman from their roles at OpenAI. Musk's lawyers said in January that he should receive up to $134 billion in "wrongful gains," though he has since asked to funnel those funds back into the OpenAI charity.