Who Owns the Future of AI?

Both sides gave it their best shot. Now it’s up to a jury—and U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers—to determine a winner in the titanic fight between artificial intelligence (AI) kingpins Elon Musk and Sam Altman. The world’s richest man—Musk—jetted off to China as President Trump’s restored “First Buddy” while the third and final week of his trial against OpenAI and cofounder Altman played out in an intense fourth-floor courtroom in Oakland, Calif. There, the diminutive Altman testified, against one Musk lawyer’s portrayal, that he was not in fact a liar. The billionaire also defended converting OpenAI from a nonprofit to a commercial entity—a move that sparked the lawsuit by Musk, a onetime major donor, alleging breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment—as essential for continued growth.