OpenAI Co-founder Greg Brockman Defends Company’s For-Profit Pivot—and His Own $30 Billion Payday

On the witness stand, Brockman offered an alternative to plaintiff Musk’s ‘bait-and-switch’ narrative.

OpenAI President Greg Brockman is depicted in a courtroom sketch as he is questioned by OpenAI attorney Sarah Eddy, during Musk's lawsuit trial over OpenAI's for-profit conversion at a federal courthouse in Oakland, Calif., on May 5, 2026. Vicki Behringer/Reuters

In the second week of a high-profile jury trial that could have profound impact on the race for artificial intelligence, OpenAI president Greg Brockman rejected allegations that he and other co-founders betrayed the company’s philanthropic mission and illegally enriched themselves by flipping the non-profit lab into a for-profit corporation.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk in 2024 sued Brockman and CEO Sam Altman, alleging they bilked him of $38 million in donations then restructured as a for-profit corporation by exclusively licensing their flagship product to Microsoft—betraying a founding mission to operate as an open-source charity that would counter the risks of profit-driven AI.