CNN 5 Things

This is One Thing, I'm David Rind, and the company behind Chet GPT is being taken to court by the world's richest man. What could possibly go wrong?

I think a lot of people might hear this and be like, ah, Elon Musk is fighting with Sam Altman and the billionaires, whatever. There is an actual potential case here.

Stick around. School shootings are a sad fact of American life. They have become disturbingly familiar. Well, earlier this week, we got a new distinctly 2026 wrinkle.

Florida's attorney general is launching a criminal investigation into OpenAI and its chat bot over a deadly shooting at Florida State University last year.

Florida's Attorney General James Uthmeyer says the shooting suspect allegedly sent hundreds of messages to chat GPT in the lead up to the attack, where he killed two people and injured six others. He has pleaded not guilty.

The communication between the shooter and chat GPT revealed that the chat bot advised the shooter on what type of gun to use, on which ammo went with which gun. So if that bot were a person, they would be charged with a principle of first degree murder.

'OpenAI insists ChatGPT was not responsible for the shooting, that it was only pulling publicly available information and did not promote illegal or harmful activity in its responses. In a statement to CNN, it said it proactively shared the account believed linked to the suspect with law enforcement after the shooting. This appears to be one of the first criminal investigations into an AI company, but critics predict it'll be far from the last. There's a sense among some people that these chatbots present a real risk to vulnerable adults and children. And that the billions of dollars being made off these products make it less likely these companies will put in appropriate safeguards. Recently, we've even seen violent attacks targeting OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, allegedly fueled by anti-AI sentiment.

Someone threw a Molotov cocktail slash sticky bomb at the gate of Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI's residence.

Now, the leaders of these AI companies say they are acutely aware of these fears and anxieties. But some argue not only are those unfounded, they say the technology could actually benefit humanity. And that tension, chasing profits above all else versus deploying AI for the public good, is at the heart of a major trial set to kick off this week in Oakland, California, that pits Altman against his former partner at OpenAI, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. The feud between two of the world's most influential billionaires has gotten really nasty and personal, but it could also have major implications for how the company behind Chad GPT operates going forward. So let's dig into this today with CNN's AI correspondent Hadass Gold. Okay, Hadass, I want to start with the most basic question I can think of. Two billionaires are beefing. So what? Like, why should the average American care about this trial?

'The average American should care about this trial because what happens here, should Elon Musk win, could directly impact, you know, the biggest, most well-known AI company that we have today, OpenAI. And it could directly affect its business and its potential planned IPO. And a lot of people see OpenAI as, you know, the leader, if not one of the top, you know three leaders on AI. So anything that can- Yeah, I think it's the-

I think it's the most household name out of any AI company that I can think of.

Everybody knows chat GPT when they think AI they think chat GPt and so this could have significant impacts again if Elon Musk wins To their business into their structure and to their leadership. Well

So how did we get here? Where did this battle actually start?

'This battle, you have to go back to 2015 when Elon Musk and Sam Altman were part of the group that co-founded OpenAI.

'You've seen other companies in the early days that start small and get really successful. Hope I don't regret asking this on camera, but how do you think OpenAI is going as a six-month-old company?

It seems to go pretty well. I think we've got a really talented group at OpenAI.

'It was then set up as a non-profit and Elon Musk gave something around 38 million dollars to help start this non-profit.

'Many non-profits do not have a sense of urgency. It's fine, they don't have to have a sense of emergency. But opening night does, because I think people really believe in the mission.

They wanted it to be nonprofit because they thought that artificial general intelligence, kind of the super AI, could potentially be a threat to humanity. They wanted to be able to control it.

It's about minimizing the risk of existential harm in the future.

'Elon Musk left in 2018 after a dispute with the other co-founders. And around that time is when OpenAI started shifting to having a for-profit arm. They still could technically run by a nonprofit, a nonprofit board, but to have a for profit arm, Sam Altman is the ultimate leader of OpenAI. He is the CEO. I mean, we saw this even when he was ousted briefly a couple years ago. It didn't last long. He was ousted by the board. Within five days, though, he was back. He has immense power and sway, not only, you know, has engendered loyalty amongst a lot of the researchers, but he has a lot powerful allies. So technically, OpenAI is run by its nonprofit board, controlled by its non-profit board. And then it has this for-profit aspect of it. In fact, interesting fact. The nonprofit part of it is the wealthiest or will likely soon be the wealthest nonprofit in the world far outpacing the Gates Foundation because of how much stake they have in open AI.

'But at the heart of this, a non-profit has one kind of mission. The for-profit part of it, obviously the goal is to make money, make profit, right? There's like an inherent contradiction.

'OpenAI would argue, no, they would argue that their goal for both the nonprofit and the for-profit is AI for good and to democratize AI and to have as many people as possible have access to this amazing technology. And that's something you hear from their for- profit arm as well. But obviously they're also making money. And the core of this lawsuit for Elon Musk is he says that OpenAI went back on its charitable start and defrauded him because you know, he put in $38 million, didn't intend for it to be part of a startup and says that he is now owed, although where that money would actually go is up for, you know he's changed his mind on that, that he has owed somebody like $130 billion. That would be the equivalent to what that $38 billion initial investment would be worth today. OpenAI obviously doesn't agree with that, but that's why he brought this lawsuit. So the lawsuit that is going to trial now was filed in August of 2024. And in the process of these lawsuits, there is discovery and you get a lot of internal communications. And we've seen emails and text messages and even personal diary entries from some of these very, very powerful people. There's texts between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, who I should note once tried to cage fight each other, but in this instance, we're talking about potentially going in and buying OpenAI together. So just imagine if that had happened, but in these messages, you know, both sides are saying well that message shows You know, we're right You know open AI will say that there's messages from Elon Musk saying that they need to take open AI for profit Otherwise, they will not survive and they will be able to beat Google. He was really obsessed with beating Google's AI ambitions And then Elon Musk's side will point to other evidence including Personal diary entries from open AI president Greg Brockman where he wrote can't see us turning this into a for-profit without a very Nasty fight. Also writing, 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.

Oh boy.

Yeah, and that actually Brockman's evidence was one of the reasons that the judge allowed this to go to trial, actually. And so I think a lot of people might hear this and be like, ah, Elon Musk is fighting with Sam Altman and the billionaires, whatever. There is an actual potential case here. And that's why people should be paying attention to this. This isn't necessarily just billionaires fighting. There is a potential case where the judge will not have let this come to a jury trial unless there was a potential actual case here that Elon Musk could win.

Well, that's what I was going to ask. Are we really supposed to believe that Musk is concerned about like the ethical implications of the corporate structure and the mission because he owns a rival AI company, right? XAI that is not nearly as popular and would stand to benefit financially if OpenAI was taking down a peg, right.

Yeah, and the motivations are going to be a key part of OpenAI's argument in this case, and they are going exactly point that out. They're going to say, first of all, point to the emails that Elon Musk was arguing that they needed to go for profit if they wanted to compete, show that he went on and founded his own AI company. And as you said, if OpenAI goes down a few pegs, then that's very beneficial to XAI, which is working very hard, you know, just recently announcing all these new partnerships and acquisitions with smaller AI labs as they're trying to catch up in this race.

'Sam Altman, the 39-year-old CEO of OpenAI, has rejected an unsolicited offer from Musk to buy OpenAI for $97.4 billion. Altman says his company is not for sale and told Bloomberg TV he thinks he knows why Musk made that offer.

I think he's probably just trying to slow us down.

Back in 2025, after Elon had actually filed this lawsuit, he led an attempt to take over the nonprofit that runs OpenAI and controls the whole company. It was for, reportedly, at least $97 billion.

Your response you're turning him down for 97 billion.

I mean look opening eyes not for sale. The opening admission is not for sell

It was rejected and Sam Altman had some choice words for Elon Musk after that bid.

Do you think Musk's approach, then, is from a position of insecurity about X.A.I.?

Probably his whole life is from the position of insecurities. I feel for the guy.

Do you feel for him?

I do, actually. I don't think he's like a happy person. I do feel for...

Yeah, I mean, it seems like there's some personal animosity going on here as this kind of drama has unfolded, right?

Yes. And one of the other things that we'll see in this trial is in the evidence, we will see how the relationship between Musk and Altman broke down because they were partners, they were friendly with each other, especially when this all first started.

I wish he would just compete by building a better product, but I think there's been a lot of tactics, many, many lawsuits, all sorts of other crazy stuff now this, and we'll try to just put our head down and keep working.

And since then, it's really broken down in a way that you hear from Sam Altman talk about how Elon Musk was always one of his heroes and how disappointed he's been in him and in the actions that he's taken.

'Let's take a quick break when we come back, how this case could impact the stock market. Well, you talk about whether Musk has a case or not. If I understand correctly, attorneys general in two states, Delaware and California, have already decided that open AI can go forward with a for-profit conversion under certain conditions. So why is Musk, who's a private citizen, allowed to challenge something that state authorities have already blessed?

'Yeah, that's a great question. And that's something that a lot of people have brought up and a lot experts have said that he's not really the right person to bring the case. But when somebody files a lawsuit, it's not about it's he or she the right person, but do they have a case? And something I think that Muskside would bring up would say the attorney generals didn't maybe have all the access to the evidence and the information that we have, especially in things like depositions. I don't know that Greg Brockman's diaries and these internal emails were available to the attorney general's. When they were doing this. And I don't know whether that would have affected their decision, but this does bring up actually a thorny legal situation where what happens if Elon Musk wins? Will we then see other nonprofits, completely unrelated to AI, who people might have given money to, maybe they had gone through restructurings and had a for-profit arm, something like that. And then can you have a donor come back and say, oh, I don't like this, and then file a lawsuit, even though regulators have approved this? I mean, One criticism I've heard of this case is that Elon Musk is trying to become a regulator after he disagreed with what the regulators did.

I mean, yeah, what other kind of possible outcomes could we see if Musk prevails here?

What he is seeking is several things. He is seeking that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman will be removed from OpenAI leadership. He wants OpenAI to revert completely back to being a nonprofit entity. He is also seeking at least 130 billion, with a B, dollars that initially was gonna go to him, and then he has filed officially saying he would want it to go back into the OpenAI nonprofit, probably recognizing that the richest man in the world getting another hundreds of billions of dollars probably doesn't look so good. But interestingly, the jury won't hear that. The jury will only be able to listen and decide on just was Elon Musk defrauded? Did they actually change the mission when they shouldn't have about this? They will not hear about the $130 billion and whether that would go to a nonprofit or not. But I think almost more important because OpenAI has a lot of money is how this could affect OpenAI's IPO. OpenAI is trying to go public this year as is. XAI's parent company, SpaceX, as is likely Anthropic. So that adds a lot of wrenches into this. And you can only imagine what a decision in Musk's favor could mean for an IPO or whether they'd even be able to still go forward with an IPO if they're forced back into a nonprofit, most likely.

Talk to me about the significance of AI companies going public in that way, like how would that change the landscape of just kind of how we see AI in general?

Well, these AI companies going public would, first of all, help them raise a lot of money and would make the people involved actually incredibly wealthy with all the issues. More than they already are. More than there already are, yeah. People forget Sam Altman was a billionaire or at least a very, very rich hundreds of millionaire before even OpenAI was involved. So these companies are already, so a lot people are saying they're kind of like helping to prop up the economy. But it's going to be a monster year of IPOs. And it actually is affecting other companies that might want to go public, because the investor energy is going to be so focused on these few companies that others are kind of rejiggling their schedules to change when they want to public.

So are we going to see Elon Musk and Sam Altman take the stand here?

'Yes, we will both Elon Musk and Sam Altman are expected to take the stand and testify and other big names in the AI and tech world, Greg Brockman, who's the president of OpenAI, Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, who was a very major early investor in OpenAI. But also some other like potentially juicy dramatic witnesses, Siobhan Zilis, who is one of Elon Musk's One of the mothers of his children was also an executive at Neuralink, but also was part of OpenAI's board at one point. Interestingly, when she first had her first children with Elon Musk, the public statement about it was that they were not in a relationship, but that she just wanted to have the smartest person she knew be the father of her children, and that was that. In her deposition, though, she actually admitted that they were in a full-on relationship when a lot of. The dramatic moments of the OpenAI Elon Musk situation was going on. And so I'm really interested to hear what she has to say because she was really in both worlds. You know, she was also part of the board. She was with Elon Musk. And now they say that they are actually a partner when Elon Musk was asked in deposition about his partner. He described Siobhan as his partner

I mean, you can nitpick around legal standing or Musk's motivations, but could you argue that there is value in this trial regardless, if only so Americans can kind of see the inner workings of how this giant influential tech company is run and the correspondence between these, incredibly rich people who are holding sway over these products that are becoming a part of our daily lives.

Yeah, I definitely think it's always fascinating and useful for people to see what is happening behind the scenes. And I mean, granted, you can never, you should never make a judgment call based off of one email or text message exchange, but it is also always interesting to see these people on the stand under oath answer questions. Now, I don't think we're gonna get into questions about whether AI is good for humanity or not. This is about corporate and nonprofit structures and. Fraud claims and the like, but that will likely come up. And well, you can see in their conversations, these kind of, in some cases, really philosophical conversations about AI and what it's going to do. And some of these people really fully believe that AI could lead to the end of humanity. And that's why it's so important to get it right and to have the right people in control of it. And I won't be surprised if we hear from Elon Musk when he takes the stand. Saying, you know, we need to have the right people in charge of it. I would have been a better steward of this because he wanted to be in control. That's one of the reasons why he left is he wanted to be the CEO and they weren't going to go for that. They weren't a fan of that. So that's Partly why he left.

I mean, that's why this is so funny to me, Hadass, because that is such a huge existential question if AI is actually good for humanity. But based on what you're saying, this trial at its heart isn't really about that, even though that is what Elon is talking about. It seems like that should be a question people are actually trying to answer, right?

Yes, that question may be addressed in this trial, but it's not one that the judges or the jury is going to rule on. But it will be interesting to hear from these people, and I'm sure that they'll be asked questions about their views on AI and what it can do, because that affects, you know, whether you're something, you're just doing it for the money or whether you are doing it for the good of humanity.

And if they are under oath, ostensibly they're answering truthfully, right? You would hope so. Well, it's going to be a wild trial. Hadass, thanks for filling this in. I appreciate it. Hadassah is going to be covering this trial for CNN from start to finish. You can check that out over at CNN.com. We're going to have another episode coming your way on Wednesday. I'll talk to you then.