Elon Musk sought settlement with OpenAI days before trial began, court filing reveals

May 4, 2026

Elon Musk attempted to settle his lawsuit against OpenAI just two days before trial began, with OpenAI publicly disclosing the outreach in court filings. Trial testimony revealed contentious details including Musk's admission that his xAI company violated OpenAI's terms of service by distilling GPT models, and Greg Brockman's 2017 journal entries acknowledging plans to convert OpenAI to for-profit without Musk. Brockman also admitted never fulfilling his $100,000 pledge to OpenAI's nonprofit while accumulating a $30 billion stake in the for-profit entity, and failed to disclose his Cerebras investment during acquisition talks. Meanwhile, OpenAI and Anthropic announced competing joint ventures raising $4 billion and $1.5 billion respectively, as the Trump administration weighs frontier-model oversight requiring early government access to advanced AI systems.

Musk's lawsuit strategy and settlement attempt before trial

▪Elon Musk reached out to Greg Brockman about discussing a settlement of the OpenAI case in the week before the trial began.
▪OpenAI's lawyers made Elon Musk's settlement email to Greg Brockman public on Sunday and tried unsuccessfully to have it admitted into evidence.
▪Greg Brockman suggested that both sides drop their respective claims in response to Elon Musk's settlement outreach.
▪Elon Musk wrote to Greg Brockman that by the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America.
▪OpenAI closed an additional $122 billion fundraise at a $852 billion valuation in March.

Key testimony and revelations from the OpenAI trial

▪Greg Brockman wrote in November 2017 that Elon Musk's story will correctly be that we weren't honest with him in the end about still wanting to do for profit just without him.
▪Greg Brockman acknowledged he never followed through on his own initial pledge to donate $100,000 to OpenAI's non-profit when it was set up.
▪Greg Brockman never disclosed his investment in Cerebras to Elon Musk.
▪Greg Brockman has a stake in OpenAI's for-profit company worth $30 billion.
▪Greg Brockman wrote in his journal entries from November 2017 about being warm to steal the nonprofit from Elon Musk to convert to b corp without him.

White House policy reversal on AI regulation and model oversight

▪AI czar David Sacks departed the White House in March.

OpenAI and Anthropic's competing private equity ventures

▪TPG, Brookfield Asset Management, Advent and Bain Capital led the investment in OpenAI's Deployment Company.
▪The private equity backers of OpenAI's Deployment Company were offered a 17.5% guaranteed annual return floor over five years.
▪Anthropic's joint venture raised $1.5 billion.
▪OpenAI's Deployment Company drew more than $4 billion from 19 investors at a $10 billion valuation.

Perspective of Greg Brockman

▪Greg Brockman's November 2017 journal entries show he contemplated converting OpenAI to a benefit corporation structure without Elon Musk's participation.