The Manifesto

Read the OpenAI Charter aloud. Read the 2026 update that softened it. Read the 2017 email Brockman and Sutskever sent Sam Altman that's now an exhibit.

Show Notes

The episode where we read the documents aloud. The OpenAI Charter's four founding tenets — verbatim from the court's summary-judgment order. The April 26, 2026 "Our Principles" post that articulates a narrower set of commitments — published the day before jury selection. And the September 2017 email Brockman and Sutskever sent Sam Altman: "We don't understand your cost function. Is AGI truly your primary motivation?"

What is AI On Trial: Sam Vs. Elon & The Future of Silicon Valley?

The most valuable AI company in history is on trial — and two of its founders are on opposite sides of the courtroom.
In Oakland federal court, eight years of OpenAI's internal evidence is being made public for the first time. Sam Altman's emails. Greg Brockman's depositions. The 2015 founding dinner at the Rosewood. The 2017 power-grab attempts. The board-meeting minutes from the weekend Sam was fired and rehired. The Microsoft contract. The "charitable trust" promise that started it all.

Most of what the public knows about OpenAI was written by OpenAI. AI On Trial: Sam Vs. Elon & The Future of Silicon Valley works from a different source: the docket. Hosts David and Sloan have read every motion, every exhibit, every sealed-then-unsealed filing in Musk v. Altman — and they're walking you through the story those documents actually tell. Not the press-release version. Not the X-thread version. The version that's now under oath.