OpenAI Cofounder Greg Brockman Defends Company’s For-Profit Pivot—and His Own $30 Billion Payday

On the witness stand, Brockman offered an alternative to plaintiff Musk’s ‘bait and switch’ narrative.

OpenAI President Greg Brockman is depicted in a courtroom sketch as he is questioned by OpenAI attorney Sarah Eddy, during Elon Musk's lawsuit trial over OpenAI's for-profit conversion at a federal courthouse in Oakland, Calif., on May 5, 2026. Vicki Behringer/Reuters

In the second week of a high-profile jury trial that could have a profound impact on the race for artificial intelligence (AI), OpenAI President Greg Brockman rejected allegations that he and other cofounders betrayed the company’s philanthropic mission and illegally enriched themselves by flipping the nonprofit lab into a for-profit corporation.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk in 2024 sued Brockman and CEO Sam Altman, alleging that they bilked him out of $38 million in donations, then restructured as a for-profit corporation by exclusively licensing their flagship product to Microsoft—betraying a founding mission to operate as an open-source charity that would counter the risks of profit-driven AI.