Altman takes the stand in Musk’s $134bn OpenAI trial as IPO clock ticks

TL;DR:

• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testified on Tuesday in an Oakland federal court, defending the company’s restructuring against Elon Musk’s claim that he was misled into co-founding the firm and providing tens of millions in backing.
• Musk is seeking Altman’s removal, the unwinding of OpenAI’s for-profit conversion, and the redistribution of $134bn (£104bn) to the non-profit; closing arguments are set for Thursday with a nine-person jury deliberating soon after.
• The outcome lands directly on UK pension funds and global allocators, with OpenAI eyeing a public offering at around $1 trillion (£779bn) later this year — a deal whose pricing is exposed to the verdict.

Altman framed Musk in his testimony as an erratic leader who “demotivated some of our key researchers” and refused to invest in companies he did not personally control. Pressed by Musk’s attorney Steven Molo on whether he was “completely trustworthy”, Altman replied only that he had “heard people say” he was deceptive — a line Musk’s team had previously seeded through testimony from former chief technical officer Mira Murati and others involved in the brief 2023 board ouster.

What is actually at stake

The lawsuit’s headline ask — $134bn redistributed to the OpenAI non-profit, plus the dissolution of the for-profit entity — is a maximalist remedy unlikely to land in full. The real damage to OpenAI runs through valuation and governance optionality. Mr Altman testified that an earlier 2017 attempt at restructuring collapsed because Musk wanted to be CEO of the for-profit and, according to Altman, suggested that future control could pass to his children. The disclosure paints a picture the OpenAI board will want investors to forget before any IPO roadshow.

UK angle

UK institutional investors are already large indirect holders of OpenAI through Microsoft’s roughly 49% economic stake, and several UK pension and sovereign-style funds have been approached about pre-IPO secondary lines. A jury finding for Musk on even narrower claims around restructuring fairness would tighten the disclosures OpenAI must put in any prospectus, potentially delaying the offering past the end-of-2026 window OpenAI executives have hinted at. The Microsoft revenue-sharing cap of $38 billion (£29.5bn) reported separately on Monday already builds in IPO preparation; a delay disrupts that whole sequence.

Looking forward

Closing arguments on Thursday will set the framing the jury carries into deliberations. Anything other than a clear OpenAI win — even a split verdict — is likely to widen the discount applied to OpenAI secondary lines and slow the IPO marketing schedule. The deeper risk for the company is not the dollar figure but the reputational record now on the trial transcript: that record will follow Altman into every regulatory meeting, every government contract negotiation, and every IPO due-diligence session for years.