The Elon Musk-Sam Altman courtroom already promises plenty of fireworks. And in its first week, the world’s richest man takes a seat in federal court in Oakland, Calif., Musk v. Altman delivered with more than a few whizz-bangs.
Musk’s goals on the witness stand were to explain his OpenAI case under friendly questioning from his lawyer, and not appear too arrogant or ignorant when questioned by the lawyer for the OpenAI executives who are suing.
Whether he succeeded in any sense is open to question – in part because Musk himself did not seems very open to questions.
But Musk did manage to get a lot of people’s attention about his ongoing romantic relationship with his former friend, and made many of us scratch our heads at what, indeed, the internet’s popular dictionary “TL;DR” stands for.
So let’s get into our TL;DR: highlights from Musk’s testimony that we’re following so you don’t have to.
1. Musk says this is about ‘robbing all the charities’
If you’re Elon Musk, and you’re trying to explain an argument between yourself and other billionaires about OpenAI’s non-profit status to a jury of nine Oaklanders who may or may not talk about Silicon Valley, how do you pitch it?
It’s simple, apparently: you paint yourself as the savior of everything trusts, not just those behind OpenAI.
“The consequences of this case are beyond me,” Musk told his lawyer Steve Molo after taking the case on Tuesday. If OpenAI wins, Musk said, it will set a precedent that will give “a license to plunder every charity … the entire foundation of charity in America will be destroyed.”
(Not mentioned: the fact that Musk’s charities have failed to provide enough money to qualify for charitable status, consistently, for the past five years.)
And if you find that result too hyperbolic, just wait until you hear another oft-repeated claim by Musk: that in bringing the suit over the 2019 change to OpenAI’s nonprofit status, he’s “saving humanity” from AI that’s “killing us all.”
Musk asked specifically and repeatedly Terminator movies, apparently in the hope that jurors will connect ChatGPT with the entirely fictional Skynet.
2. OpenAI says this is about Musk’s ‘sour grapes’
Musk’s account of the OpenAI story dominated Tuesday, the first full day after jury selection. But it was also the day he had to sit in the middle of the opening argument of Altman et al., which painted a clear picture of him again.
“We’re here because Musk didn’t get his way at OpenAI,” said OpenAI lead advisor William Savitt. “My clients had the courage to continue and succeed without him. Mr. Musk didn’t like that.”
Savitt noted that Musk didn’t complain when Microsoft invested in OpenAI in 2019. It was after the success of ChatGPT, which started in 2022 but extended to 2023, that “sour grapes came in,” Savitt said.
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Under Savitt’s questioning on Thursday, Musk said he was OK with Microsoft’s $1 billion investment in 2019, but not its $10 billion investment in 2022.
The judge has already decided that Musk can get a fair trial even if the judges say they don’t particularly like him, because it’s impossible in the Bay Area to find anyone who doesn’t know him.
So there really is an audience among those nine for what Savitt is laying out here. Especially when Savitt took time Wednesday to remind jurors in this deeply Democratic town that Musk was hired by Donald Trump.
3. Mask reluctantly noticed the mother of his children
Under positive questioning on Tuesday, Musk identified Shivon Zillis — a key player in the early days of OpenAI — as his “chief of staff.” A lot of laughter came from the public gallery, probably from those who know that Zilis is also the mother of Musk’s children, or at least four of the 14.
Asked again about Zilis by his lawyer on Wednesday, Musk came out and said: “We live together and she is the mother of my four children.”
Despite this shift in the relationship, which he admitted was romantic, Musk insisted that he did not recall Zilis ever sharing “sensitive” information about OpenAI after he left the company in 2019.
4. What’s the TL;DR, Elon?
Asked by his lawyer to explain the acronym TL;DR, which appeared in the court document, Musk said it stood for “Too Long, Don’t Read.” As any dictionary will tell you, however, it is actually Too Long It didn’t Learn.
That may have been a bit of a mistake, but only because Musk appears to have used his own version to include himself in the court documents. On Wednesday, Savitt criticized Musk for saying that he would only read the first paragraph of the important OpenAI document.
On Thursday, an OpenAI consultant played part of Musk’s 2025 decision where he claimed to have read everything. TL; DR: OpenAI does a great job of finding out that Musk’s statements about learning or not learning are, at the very least, unreliable.
5. Musk testified on the stand, not helped by ‘Rule 101’
Whoever else Musk might be corroborating his testimony, he and his attorney didn’t help their position with Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, a veteran of big tech litigation.
Several times Wednesday, Gonzalez Rogers criticized Molo, Musk’s attorney, for leading the witness. “You should have read it,” he snapped at Musk and the adviser in his TL;DR way about the indictment documents. And he noted to the judge that Musk was “sometimes difficult” under OpenAI’s questions.
If anything, that understates the issue. Musk was furious with Savitt for asking “yes or no” questions, the common sense of the court. He said they were “designed to deceive me,” and called Savitt’s claim that they were “easy questions” an outright “lie.”
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Musk drew a connection between Savitt’s yes or no questions and the classic example of a loaded question, “when did you stop beating your wife?” Gonzalez Rogers shut Musk down on this: “We’re not going there,” he said.
Immediately, Savitt apologized for what he said was “not a fair question.” Before he re-edited it, Musk had a dismissive comment: “I find it funny that it wasn’t the right question, since you’re asking the wrong questions.”
Most lawyers in Molo’s position would advise their clients to lay low after a day like that on the witness stand. Whether Molo did or not, Musk was back on Thursday, the last day of his testimony (although OpenAI reserves the right to call him again later in the case).
Consistent with the judge’s admonition for his attorney, Musk has maintained that Savitt was leading the witness. However, that is the only thing that works friendly he asked, as Gonzalez Rogers said.
“It doesn’t work like that,” the judge told the world’s richest man, before dropping the mic: “Let’s remind everyone in court that you’re not a lawyer.”
But Musk couldn’t avoid having the last word, telling the judge that “I took Rule 101 from school.”
As any Law 101 professor can tell Musk, however, he should be glad to get off the witness stand before he makes his case worse for himself.
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that it infringes Ziff Davis’s copyright in training and using its AI programs.
