OpenAI President Greg Brockman wanted a billion dollars — now his stake is worth $30 billion

In a courtroom in Oakland, California, a drama is unfolding that could determine the future of who wins the AI race. This is the second week of Musk v. Altman, a civil trial in the Northern District of California Court where a jury is watching altruism clash with capitalism, while some of the most wealthy and powerful people in the world are airing their long-simmering beef. 

Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman all comes down to the AI giant’s strange, convoluted origin story. In 2015, a group of founders and AI researchers — including Musk and Altman — set out to build a nonprofit organization that would invent, then bestow upon the world, a safe, benevolent, superintelligent AI for the betterment of mankind.

Ten years later, OpenAI’s ChatGPT has proven to be one of the most successful product launches of all time, and the newly restructured for-profit public benefit corporation is on the cusp of pulling off one of the largest IPOs in history.

In the lawsuit, Musk alleges Altman and cofounder Greg Brockman (now OpenAI’s president) engaged in a “long con,” using Musk’s clout and expertise to recruit and build the company, only to betray the vision of the company and his onetime friend by “cashing in” with Microsoft’s $10 billion investment in 2023. Microsoft is also named as a codefendant in the case.

Last week, Musk took the witness stand for several days of testimony and said, “You can’t just steal a charity.” Musk made the case that he was instrumental in the creation of OpenAI, and shared his expertise as a founder to help attract top AI talent and acquire the necessary computing power to build a powerful new AI system. From the stand, Musk called himself “a fool” for donating $38 million in seed capital to the startup. 

On Monday morning, I was in the courtroom as Brockman entered holding the hand of his wife, Anna, and then proceeded to the stand to face a grilling by Musk’s attorney, Steven Molo.

Right off the bat, Molo confirmed that since its founding, Brockman put exactly zero dollars into the company, but now holds a stake worth roughly $30 billion, which Brockman confirmed for the first time.

Molo showed a 2015 email from Brockman to then Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer soliciting a donation for the fledgling startup (then known as YC Research), in which he dropped the names of several high-profile donors, such as Musk, LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, and Palantir cofounder Peter Thiel. In the email, Brockman said Altman was donating $10 million and that he himself would donate $100,000. 

Molo then asked Brockman if he had ever followed through on making that donation, and Brockman acknowledged that he had not. “You lied?” asked Molo — a characterization that Brockman disputed. 

Molo then walked through a number of examples of how Musk lent his power to help clear obstacles for the startup, including helping sign off on work visas for new hires and making “closing calls” to help woo top talent to come aboard. Brockman agreed that they asked for Musk’s help and got it. 

The challenge of securing the huge amounts of computing power they needed to build their new technology created a real problem for the startup, and again Musk helped clear this obstacle. In a June 2017 email to Musk, Brockman thanked him for reaching out to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella for access to 10,000 Nvidia GPUs so OpenAI could use its AI to compete against human players in an esports competition (which it ended up winning).

Molo highlighted Musk’s access, asking Brockman if he would’ve been able to just call up Nadella at the time. “Would he take your call?” Molo asked. He then showed a photo from a Musk tweet of Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, clad in his signature leather jacket delivering the company’s first Nvidia DGX1 to OpenAI’s office. 

“Would Jensen be able to pick you out of a crowd of two at the time?” Molo deadpanned. 

Molo went on to highlight some potential conflicts of interest relating to Brockman’s investments. OpenAI cut deals with Cerebras and CoreWeave, which Brockman benefited from financially. Molo asked if he was involved in those decisions as president of OpenAI, to which Brockman responded that he was involved in those discussions, and believed that he had disclosed his stakes to Shivon Zilis, and OpenAI board member (and mother to four of Musk’s children). Brockman acknowledged that he did not offer any proof that he ever disclosed the stakes to Musk.

A fork in the road

In one line of questioning, Molo sought to show the jury that Brockman’s desire to be a billionaire outweighed his desire to serve humanity. Some cringeworthy moments ensued in the courtroom as Molo read some passages back to Brockman from his personal journal. 

In an August 21, 2018, journal entry, Brockman contemplated what he described in his testimony as “a fork in the road.” Should they let Musk take charge and cede total control of OpenAI to him? Or should they move ahead with plans to raise capital as a for-profit?

“This is the only chance we have to get out from Elon. Is he the ‘glorious leader’ that I would pick? We truly have a chance to make this happen. Financially, what will take me to $1B?” wrote Brockman. 

Molo pressed Brockman — if he was so dedicated to the altruism of serving humanity, why hasn’t he donated the extra $29 billion of his wealth to OpenAI’s nonprofit arm after achieving that first billion that he pined for? Brockman waffled a bit before saying that he asked Altman how he should go about donating his money, but that he said he would get back to him. 

During this line of questioning, I glanced over to Altman to see his reaction — he was pulling his blazer up over part of his face.

“Then it was a lie”

In addition to the internal chain of thought related to OpenAI’s corporate structure, as well as his personal financial goals, Brockman also kept contemporaneous notes of meetings and calls with his partners. 

Some of the descriptions in these entries appear to clearly describe the behavior Musk is accusing the founders of.  

In a summary of a breakfast meeting on November 6, 2017, with cofounder Ilya Sutskever, Brockman wrote: 

“cannot say that we are committed to the non-profit. don’t wanna say that we’re committed. if three months later we’re doing b corp then it was a lie.”

Brockman’s prophetic entry continued:  

“can’t see us turning this into a for-profit without a very nasty fight. i’m just thinking about the office and we’re in the office. And his story will correctly be that we weren’t honest with him in the end about still wanting to do the for profit just without him.”

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will make the ultimate decision in the case, as the jury will focus only on the liability phase of the trial, and its verdict will only be advisory. The case is expected to conclude before the end of May.