The Trial of the Century

The federal trial that's about to decide who owns OpenAI — and what it means when a charity becomes the most valuable AI company in history.

Show Notes

A federal courtroom in Oakland. The most valuable AI company in history is on trial. We open on Steve Molo's "they stole a charity" line and walk through the cast, the five surviving claims, three weeks of testimony, and the question that may decide the next ten years of Silicon Valley: if you start a nonprofit and end up running the most valuable for-profit AI company in the world, is that fraud?

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.