Court filing reveals Musk sought OpenAI settlement 2 days before trial

Two days before his civil trial against OpenAI was due to begin, Elon Musk privately messaged OpenAI president Greg Brockman to explore a settlement and when Brockman counter-proposed that both sides drop all claims, Musk replied with a threat: "By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America. If you insist, so it will be." The exchange was disclosed in a court filing submitted by OpenAI's lawyers on Sunday.

In the filing, it was claimed that the message was sent by Musk to Brockman around April 25, 2026, as a means of gauging interest in settlement. However, the response from Brockman indicated that he suggested a withdrawal from both claims made by either party.

Advertisement

As quoted in the filing, Musk's response, however, dispensed with any further negotiation and shifted to direct personal warning aimed at both Brockman and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

The conversation was filed by the lawyers for OpenAI as the jury selection began on April 27 at an Oakland County courthouse in Oakland, California, where the lawsuit named Musk vs OpenAI is proceeding.

Musk initiated this legal proceeding about two years back, claiming that Altman and Brockman knowingly misled him into joining hands with them to form OpenAI in 2015. 

His main contention is that the organisation had an initial commitment to work towards the advancement of artificial general intelligence for the greater good of mankind as a non-profit entity and that now it has reneged from its promise and entered into a business partnership with Microsoft.

OpenAI and its management team have denied all the accusations. They say that Musk had willingly joined the company as an early member but quit the board in 2018 and went on to form his own rival artificial intelligence firm called xAI.