【AI前沿】Closing time

AIOpenAIClosing timeWhat did we learn throughout Musk v. Altman? A lot of gossip.byElizabeth LopattoMay 14, 2026, 10:21 PM UTCLinkShareGiftImage: The Verge; Getty ImagesAIOpenAIClosing timeWhat did we learn throughout Musk v. Altman? A lot of gossip.byElizabeth LopattoMay 14, 2026, 10:21 PM UTCLinkShareGiftPart OfLive updates from Elon Musk and Sam Altman’s court battle over the future of OpenAIsee all updatesElizabeth Lopattois a reporter who writes about tech, money, and human behavior. She joined The Verge in 2014 as science editor. Previously, she was a reporter at Bloomberg.Today was closing arguments in theMusk v. Altmantrial, and I almost feel bad writing about the unbelievable demolition derby I just witnessed. Steven Molo, Musk’s lawyer, stumbled over his words. He at one point called Greg Brockman — a co-defendant — Greg Altman. He erroneously claimed that Musk wasn’t asking for money and had to be corrected by the judge. He made it clear we’ve heard from many liars over the past few weeks, but offered little evidence for Musk’s actual legal claims.OpenAI’s lawyer, Sarah Eddy, countered this by simply arranging the mountain of evidence that the company introduced in chronological order. She didn’t spend time trying to pretend anyone in this trial is especially reliable. She did, however, get the zinger of the day, about Musk: “Even the mother of his children can’t back his story.” William Savitt, who took the defendant baton after her presentation, demonstrated the number of times Musk “didn’t recall” some critical detail — and wondered how a sophisticated businessman couldn’t understand or read a four-page term sheet OpenAI had sent to him.Musk v. AltmanA free, limited-run newsletter about the biggest moments from the Musk v. Altman trial.Email (required)Sign UpBy submitting your email, you agree to ourTermsandPrivacy Notice.This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the GooglePrivacy PolicyandTerms of Serviceapply.I found myself wondering, again, why we were all wasting our time here. So let’s discuss the gossip, which is the real point of this trial. How good was it? Here are my favorite nuggets.Musk used OpenAI to improve xAI. I’m afraid this trial was front-loaded; revealed the first week, this was the best bit of gossip we got. AsI suggested in 2024, Grok was developedveryfast — so fast I was skeptical it was entirely independent. Turns out, it wasn’t. Musk admitted that xAI distilled other models, including OpenAI’s. What was all that investor money for, again?Tesla AI failed to run at AGI.Musk in fact failed at this twice, once by unsuccessfully trying to acquire OpenAI and again by unsuccessfully trying to kneecap OpenAI by recruiting its employees,including Sam Altman himself, for a“world-class AI lab.”Sam Altman confirmeddecade-old reportsthat he thought about running for governor of California.Everyone, but especially Musk, isobsessed with Demis Hassabis.Musk claimedhe doesn’t lose his temper.During the cross examination, he lost his temper at OpenAI’s Savitt.Mira Murati played both sides of the Altman ouster— providing some chats that got him removed, then feeding Altman details about what the board was up to, publicly complaining about the event, and refusing to tell employees about her role in the ouster. I would call this “directionally very bad” for Murati. Everyone hammered on Altman as a snake, but Murati is no better.Musk wanted his kids to inherit OpenAI. (At least, according to Altman!)Altman hired Savitt, who kicked Musk’s ass on Twitter, and may very well kick his ass again. I was amused by Altman’s commitment to knifework under oath, managing to suggest both that Musk had little to do with OpenAI, say he had “front-runner-itis,”andimply Musk was no longer respected, but managing to annoy someone just procedurally… From one petty bitch to another:beautifullydone.Brockman and other OpenAI engineers worked at Tesla, while they were theoretically employed by OpenAI, on self-driving software.Shivon Zillis didn’t tell her fellow board membersthat Musk was the father of her children untilBusiness Insidergot ahold of some court documents. She didn’t even tell her own father!“Rumor has it that, on top of the folks that secretly converse on Twitter DM because they don’t trust Demis not to spy on their email and gchat…”“I don’t want to be IBMand OpenAI to be Microsoft.”The jackass trophy. I am so sorry that the jurors didn’t get to see it. It was like a little league trophy but just the back half of a donkey. Even Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers thought this was pretty funny.While this trial was meant to punish Altman andarguably already has, I’d like to focus on my actual takeaway here: Elon Musk sucks at AI.Look, Musk said multiple times that OpenAI wouldn’t succeed. He’s tried, repeatedly, to kneecap it and steal its researchers and in one case — that of Andrej Karpathy, a founding team member Musk lured to Tesla — succeeded. But how’s xAI doing? Well, it’sa black hole for moneythat’s b