Elon Musk walked into court last week insisting his lawsuit against OpenAI is about saving humanity from a wayward lab. Days earlier, according to OpenAI, he was on text threatening that its leaders would soon be “the most hated men in America.” In between those two moments lies the fight now shaping the trial: is this about principle, or payback?

The lead‑up: a lawsuit over OpenAI’s soul

Musk’s suit accuses OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman of abandoning the startup’s original nonprofit mission to build AI “for the benefit of humanity,” transforming it into a profit-driven juggernaut aligned with Microsoft instead of the public interest.¹ That clash over mission and money set the stage for a high-stakes trial watched across Silicon Valley and Washington.

As the trial date neared, the legal battle was already framed as Musk versus the company he helped found and later left behind. But the most explosive development arrived not in court, but by text.

Two days before trial: a “settlement” that turns sour

According to a Sunday court filing from OpenAI, just two days before the trial began, Musk reached out directly to OpenAI president and co-founder Greg Brockman “to gauge interest” in a possible settlement.³ This was not a back-channel between lawyers; it was the plaintiff himself contacting a top executive at the company he was suing.

Brockman, OpenAI says, responded with a straightforward peace offer: both sides should simply drop everything. “Brockman promptly responded, suggesting that ‘both sides’ drop their claims,” Ars Technica reports.³

That could have ended one of the most politically charged tech lawsuits of the decade before it ever reached the jury. Instead, OpenAI says, it was the moment things escalated.

“Most hated men in America”: the threat at the center of the fight

Musk, according to OpenAI’s filing and contemporaneous reporting, rejected Brockman’s proposal — and then turned up the heat. “By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America,” Musk allegedly wrote in response to Brockman’s suggestion that all claims be dropped. “If you insist, so it will be.”³

The Verge summarizes the exchange bluntly: “Elon Musk tried to settle before the trial — and got threatening.”¹ TechCrunch characterizes the messages as “ominous texts” sent to Brockman and Altman after Musk had asked for a settlement, noting Musk’s line that they “will be the most hated men in America.”²

OpenAI seized on those words. Its lawyers are now trying to get the message admitted as evidence that “Mr. Musk’s motivation in pursuing this lawsuit is to attack a competitor and its principals,” The Verge reports from the courtroom.¹

In other words, OpenAI wants the jury to see Musk not as a betrayed visionary, but as a litigious rival using the courts — and his enormous online platform — as a weapon.

Inside the courtroom: a bumpy start for Musk

If that alleged threat makes it in front of the jury, it will land on top of what has already been a rocky start for Musk on the stand.

Ars Technica, following the trial, reports that Musk was the first witness and “stumbled several times, perhaps weakening his case by making concessions, growing hot-tempered, backing off claims that AI risks may quickly become existential, and admitting his ignorance when it comes to AI safety at his own company, xAI.”³

Those early missteps matter because Musk’s public persona is heavily anchored in his warnings about existential AI risk. Backing off those claims under oath, while simultaneously suing a leading AI lab over alleged safety abandonment, does not help the narrative he needs the jury to believe.

Against that backdrop, a last-minute message suggesting that OpenAI’s leaders would be turned into national villains starts to look less like righteous whistleblowing and more like pressure tactics.

OpenAI’s strategy: motive, bias, and a pattern

OpenAI’s legal strategy now hinges on turning Musk’s own words into a case study in motive. If the court allows Brockman to testify about the exchange, “his alleged threat could become his next big stumble,” Ars Technica notes, as Brockman — whom Musk also wants out at OpenAI — takes the stand.³

The company argues that this wasn’t a genuine attempt at compromise but an effort to “coerce” a settlement on Musk’s terms.³ To pierce the usual protections around settlement discussions, OpenAI is reaching back into Musk’s legal past.

Typically, communications made in the context of settlement talks are not admissible in court. But OpenAI points to a notable exception: Musk’s 2022 Twitter acquisition lawsuit, where similar hardball tactics ended up in the record. According to Ars Technica, in that case Musk’s team invited a renegotiation of the Twitter purchase price “so that the lawsuit could be dropped,” while threatening that “it would be World War III until the end of time for real” for Twitter leaders and “their heirs” if he was forced to buy at the original, meme-infected $54.20 price.³

OpenAI cites that history to argue that Musk has a pattern: use the looming threat of his wealth, litigation, and public megaphone to make life miserable for opponents unless they fold.

The judge has not yet ruled definitively on whether the pre-trial texts in the OpenAI case will be admitted. But just the fight over those messages is reshaping how both sides tell the story of why this case exists at all.

Musk’s narrative: betrayed founder versus captured lab

On Musk’s side, the narrative is simpler — and, for his supporters, compelling. He casts himself as the co-founder who watched OpenAI drift from a pure, open, nonprofit mission into exactly the kind of closed, corporate AI power center he says he feared from the start.

His complaint argues that under Altman’s direction, OpenAI “abandoned its mission to serve as a nonprofit making AI to benefit humanity,” Ars Technica notes.³ In public, he portrays his break with OpenAI as a matter of principle: a refusal to bless what he sees as the capture of a public-good institution by Big Tech.

Through that lens, his late-hour text to Brockman can be read not as extortion but as prediction: that public opinion, once the facts come out, will turn sharply against Altman and his inner circle. The line about being “the most hated men in America” could be framed as Musk’s dark forecast of backlash against an AI lab he claims has gone rogue.

That’s the story Musk needs to tell the jury: that the case is about enforcing promises and protecting humanity, not punishing a rival.

OpenAI’s counter: competitor, not crusader

OpenAI, however, is intent on recasting Musk as just another player in the AI arms race — and a particularly aggressive one.

The Verge reports that OpenAI’s lawyers want the jury to see Musk’s statement as evidence that his “motivation in pursuing this lawsuit is to attack a competitor and its principals.”¹ TechCrunch underscores the same theme, describing the texts as “ominous” and squarely situating them as part of OpenAI’s claim that Musk’s case is strategic rather than altruistic.²

That effort dovetails with broader critiques of Musk’s own AI ventures. While he lambasts OpenAI’s safety posture, he also admitted under oath that he is ignorant about key safety issues at xAI, according to Ars Technica’s account.³ For OpenAI, that kind of testimony is a gift: it makes it easier to argue that Musk’s safety rhetoric is selective, and that his true concern is who wins the commercial and political race.

The stakes: more than just one ugly text

The fight over whether a single message can be shown to the jury may sound procedural. It’s not. It goes to the heart of how this trial will be remembered — as a clash over the ethics and governance of world-shaping technology, or as another episode in Elon Musk’s long-running war with institutions he believes have crossed him.

If the court blocks Brockman’s testimony about the exchange, Musk’s team will find it easier to keep the focus on OpenAI’s charter, its corporate structure, and its Microsoft alliance. If the judge lets it in, the jury will hear, directly from a key OpenAI leader, that days before Musk took the stand claiming to defend humanity, he was privately promising to turn two men into public enemies.

From Twitter to Tesla to OpenAI, Musk has long blurred the line between negotiation and threat. In the Twitter saga, it was “World War III until the end of time” for executives who didn’t bend on price.³ In this case, OpenAI alleges, it’s a promise that Altman and Brockman will be the “most hated men in America” if they don’t cave.

Whether a jury sees that as prophecy or intimidation could decide not just who wins this lawsuit, but whose story about the future of AI sticks.

---

1. Elon Musk tried to settle before the trial — “Elon Musk tried to settle before the trial — and got threatening… OpenAI’s lawyers are trying to get the statement admitted to court as evidence that ‘Mr. Musk’s motivation in pursuing this lawsuit is to attack a competitor and its principals.’”

2. Elon Musk sent ominous texts to Greg Brockman, Sam Altman after asking for a settlement, OpenAI claims — “Musk texted OpenAI's president and co-founder, Greg Brockman… saying that he and CEO Sam Altman ‘will be the most hated men in America.’”

3. Musk’s “World War III” threat in Twitter lawsuit haunts him at OpenAI trial — “Just days before the trial started, Elon Musk tried to settle his lawsuit… ‘By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America,’ Musk responded… OpenAI pointed to an exception made during Musk’s failed lawsuit attempting to back out of his Twitter purchase… threatening that ‘it would be World War III until the end of time for real’ for Twitter leaders and ‘their heirs.’”