OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took the witness stand in a landmark trial, defending his company’s transition from a non-profit research lab to a commercial powerhouse against allegations brought by Elon Musk. The trial represents the climax of a long-standing feud between the two tech titans over the soul and future direction of artificial intelligence development.

Musk, an original co-founder and major financial backer of OpenAI, alleges that Altman and other executives betrayed the company’s founding mission to develop AI for the benefit of humanity rather than for profit. Musk’s legal team argues that OpenAI’s multibillion-dollar partnership with Microsoft and its decision to keep its most advanced technology proprietary constitute a breach of contract and a “theft” of the public-interest vision he originally funded.

During his testimony, Altman pushed back against these claims, asserting that the shift toward a “capped-profit” structure was a necessary evolution to secure the massive amounts of capital and computing power required to build safe and effective Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Altman maintained that OpenAI remains committed to its safety mission, but argued that the original non-profit model was unsustainable given the sheer scale of the costs involved in modern AI development.

The trial has pulled back the curtain on the early days of OpenAI, revealing private emails and internal disagreements about how much power the company should wield. As the legal proceedings continue, the outcome could have profound implications for the AI industry, potentially setting a precedent for how “open-source” and “non-profit” tech organizations are allowed to pivot toward commercialization.