In the federal courtroom in Oakland this afternoon, the weight of OpenAI’s founding promises hung heavier than usual as Ilya Sutskever, co-founder, former chief scientist, and one of the most brilliant minds in artificial intelligence, took the stand.
Dressed in a light blue button-down shirt with an intense, unblinking gaze, Ilya appeared dejected about his estrangement from the company he helped build.
He barely made eye contact during his roughly one-hour testimony, speaking in a commanding baritone that carried the quiet authority of someone who once poured his life into the mission.
Elon Musk’s legal team called him as a witness, even attempting unsuccessfully to treat him as hostile due to his massive financial stake.
Yet what unfolded was a masterclass in the tensions that have defined this trial: the original nonprofit dream versus the billions now at stake.
Ilya Recalls Early Recruitment Meetings With Elon Musk
Musk’s lead lawyer Steven Molo began with the early days, November 19, 2015, roughly three and a half weeks before OpenAI’s public launch. Molo walked Ilya through those formative recruitment meetings with Elon.
Did you have regular meetings with him? Ilya confirmed they did. The questions turned to departures like Andrej Karpathy leaving for Tesla’s self-driving efforts. Ilya admitted he was definitely a little bit bothered, but at least it wasn’t the end of the world.
Explosive 2018 Email Reveals Ilya’s High Praise for Elon
Then came the January 1, 2018 email from Ilya to Elon Musk, already admitted into evidence.
Molo read the key lines aloud: You quickly pushed me out of my academic comfort zone. With time, I grew to appreciate the vast depth of your strategic insight. I can think of many examples. And the clincher: It helps that we have the most overwhelmingly competent person in the world helping us accomplish the task. Ilya didn’t dispute the words.
Ilya explained that he viewed Elon as by far the most competent, the strongest founder CEO in the world during the 2015 to 2018 funding period.
When pressed on the strategic insight reference, Ilya said it was about making high-consequence decisions well. The mission statement from OpenAI’s December 11, 2015 announcement was displayed:
A nonprofit artificial intelligence research company. Our goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by need to generate a financial return.
Ilya agreed he never disagreed with it at the time and never told anyone otherwise.
Ilya Admits He Spent a Year Building Case Against Sam Altman
But the testimony quickly pivoted to sharper revelations that cut to the heart of Elon’s case. Ilya confirmed he had spent about a year gathering evidence before the November 2023 board vote to oust Sam Altman.
He told the board that Altman exhibits a consistent pattern of lying, undermining his execs and pitting his execs against one another. Yes, that was clearly his view at the time. He reflected that an environment where executives don’t have the correct information is not conducive to attaining any difficult, grand goal, such as safe AGI. Yet Ilya stood by his role in the ouster while criticizing the board’s rushed process. He signed the employee petition to reinstate Altman afterward, calling it a Hail Mary because I didn’t want it to be destroyed. He felt a great deal of ownership over OpenAI: I felt like I put my life into it, and I simply cared for it.
Ilya Reveals Stunning $7 Billion OpenAI Stake
On the for-profit shift that lies at the center of Elon’s lawsuit, Ilya pushed back hard against the original mission narrative.
He testified he made no such promise to Elon that OpenAI would remain a nonprofit forever.
The mission of OpenAI is larger than its nonprofit or for-profit structure, he said firmly. He opposed Elon’s early proposal to merge OpenAI with Tesla, calling it something that would kill the dream.
When asked about Musk’s push for majority control, Ilya described it as feeling aggressive given Elon’s other massive responsibilities.
He also revealed the staggering personal price he once turned down: Google offered him six million dollars a year to stay rather than join OpenAI. And in a moment that underscored the scale of what OpenAI has become, Ilya confirmed under oath that his ownership stake in the company is now worth roughly seven billion dollars, the second newly revealed OpenAI billionaire in the trial after Greg Brockman’s nearly thirty billion dollar stake last week.
Judge Asks About Dramatic AI Progress Since 2018
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers interjected with a rare question, showing her own curiosity about the technology’s leap. What was the technology like at that point? she asked, referring to 2018. Ilya’s answer was vivid: comparing AI then to now was like the difference between an ant and a cat. Without massive funding, he noted, there is no big computer.
What This Testimony Really Means for Elon Musk’s Fight
Here was the man who once called Elon the most competent founder on Earth, who helped recruit talent in those early nonprofit days, who later saw a consistent pattern of lying in Sam Altman’s leadership, now defending the very for-profit transformation Elon says betrayed the 2015 covenant.
This testimony only proves how right Elon Musk has been all along. The original charter that Elon helped write, open, safe, and unconstrained by financial return, was never meant to create trillion-dollar empires or turn co-founders into multi-billionaires while abandoning the promise to benefit all of humanity.
Elon isn’t fighting for control or ego.
Elon is fighting to protect the idea that the most powerful technology humanity has ever created should belong to all of us, not quietly traded away behind closed doors for personal gain.
Moments like today, where even one of OpenAI’s own co-founders once saw Elon’s vision so clearly, underscore why this battle matters so deeply to the future of artificial intelligence and humanity itself.
Sources
Live courtroom updates from @michelletomkim and @FrancesWangTV Official court audio from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California Primary reporting confirming every quote and detail from today’s testimony.
