OpenAI Trial Week 2: Brockman Takes the Stand, Reveals IPO Plans and $30B Stake

The Oakland federal courthouse became the center of Silicon Valley’s attention again this week as the landmark lawsuit between Elon Musk and OpenAI entered its second week of testimony. With Musk’s own incendiary time on the stand behind him, the spotlight shifted to Greg Brockman — OpenAI’s co-founder and President — whose Monday testimony produced two revelations that immediately reverberated far beyond the courtroom.

Brockman Confirms the IPO, Discloses a $30 Billion Stake

In perhaps the most closely watched moment of the trial’s second week, Brockman publicly confirmed for the first time that OpenAI is actively exploring an initial public offering. The disclosure is significant: while IPO speculation has swirled for months, OpenAI has carefully avoided official confirmation, making Brockman’s courtroom admission a definitive acknowledgment that the path to public markets is real and in progress.

Equally striking was Brockman’s disclosure of his personal holdings. He testified that he owns nearly $30 billion worth of OpenAI shares — a stake that, if accurate, would rank him somewhere in the 80s or 90s on Forbes’s global billionaires list. The figure underscores the enormous wealth concentration at the top of a company that was originally conceived as a nonprofit dedicated to the broad benefit of humanity. For Musk’s legal team, the number functions as evidence: it illustrates exactly what Musk claims was at stake when insiders allegedly steered a charitable institution into a vehicle for private enrichment.

The Settlement That Wasn’t — and the Threat That Followed

Before Brockman even took the stand, a bombshell filing surfaced that threatened to overshadow his testimony entirely. Court documents revealed that Musk reached out to Brockman two days before the trial’s opening — gauging whether a settlement was possible. Brockman reportedly responded by suggesting that both sides drop their respective claims.

What followed was vintage Musk. Rather than continuing down a conciliatory path, Musk sent a sharply worded message: “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 not entered into evidence. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who is overseeing the case without a jury for her ultimate ruling (the nine-person advisory jury will weigh in on the liability phase only), opted to exclude the text from the record. But the disclosure arrived in public filings — meaning journalists and investors read it regardless.

Legal observers noted that the exchange cuts in multiple directions. Musk’s willingness to seek settlement could be read as doubt about his own case; his subsequent threatening message could be read as intimidation. Neither party has offered further public comment on the exchange.

What Brockman’s Testimony Covers

Brockman’s appearance on the stand focuses on the core question of the lawsuit: whether OpenAI’s founders made binding commitments to operate as a nonprofit, and whether the transition to a capped-profit structure in 2019 — and then to a public benefit corporation in October 2025 — constituted a breach of those commitments.

Musk, who co-founded and helped fund OpenAI in its early days, alleges that he was deceived into donating money under the belief it would be used to build AI for humanity’s benefit. In his own testimony last week, he described the company as a stolen charity, claiming the transition enriched Altman, Brockman, and other insiders at the expense of the public and original donors. He is seeking more than $130 billion in damages and structural remedies.

Brockman’s account, as expected, pushes back on that narrative. Brockman is expected to argue that OpenAI’s evolution from nonprofit to for-profit was always contemplated as a practical necessity for competing with well-capitalized rivals — and that Musk was not only aware of those discussions but was at various points supportive of them. OpenAI has previously released documents from its early governance period that it says demonstrate Musk had a full understanding of the company’s direction.

Altman Testimony Expected Week of May 11

Judge Gonzalez Rogers has structured the trial in two phases. The liability phase — in which the advisory jury will make non-binding findings — is expected to conclude by May 21. Sam Altman himself is not expected to take the stand until the week of May 11, making the final stretch of the liability phase the highest-stakes stretch of testimony yet.

Altman’s appearance will likely dominate coverage in ways that even Musk’s combative week on the stand did not. Whereas Musk brought theatrical energy and decades of grievance, Altman arrives as the sitting CEO of the world’s most valuable AI company, facing direct questions about the decisions he made to transform it. How he performs — under cross-examination from Musk’s lawyers — may matter as much for OpenAI’s reputation and IPO prospects as for the trial itself.

Why This Trial Is More Than a Lawsuit

The Musk v. Altman case is unique even by the standards of Silicon Valley’s famously high-stakes litigation. At its heart, it asks a question that no court has ever been asked to answer at this scale: when a group of people build a transformative technology under a charitable mission and then change course, what are the legal consequences?

OpenAI’s $852 billion valuation from its last funding round, and the now-confirmed IPO trajectory, mean the stakes are financial as much as philosophical. If Musk prevails and structural remedies are imposed — potentially including a requirement that proceeds benefit the charitable mission — the consequences for OpenAI’s capitalization plans could be severe.

More broadly, the trial is producing a public record about the private conversations, commitments, and tensions inside one of the world’s most consequential technology organizations. Every text message, board memo, and founding document entered into evidence becomes a piece of AI history — one that will inform how future AI labs structure themselves, and how their founders think about the promises they make at the outset.

Brockman’s testimony is scheduled to continue Tuesday morning. Attention will then shift to other OpenAI executives before Altman takes the stand in the final week of the liability phase.