Altman: Musk Spent Meeting Showing Memes on Phone

Jurors are about to decide whether the world's most closely watched AI lab broke its original promise—or whether Elon Musk is rewriting history. Closing arguments began Thursday in Musk's blockbuster lawsuit against OpenAI and its key partner, Microsoft, after a three-week trial that pulled in tech heavyweights and laid bare the fractured origins of the ChatGPT maker, the New York Times reports.

• Musk says OpenAI betrayed its 2015 nonprofit mission to build and freely share "safe" AI, accusing CEO Sam Altman and others of turning a public-minded lab into a profit machine. He's seeking more than $150 billion in damages, Altman's removal from the board, and an end to OpenAI's current for-profit structure.

• OpenAI counters that Musk himself pushed for more funding and a for-profit arm, and notes there is no written founding contract backing his claims. With OpenAI valued at around $730 billion and eyeing a giant IPO and massive data-center build-out, the verdict could reshape the AI race—and hand a boost to rivals like Google, Anthropic, and Musk's own xAI.
• If the nine-person jury finds in favor of Musk, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will decide on damages and remedies, the Times reports. Reuters reports that if there is no verdict by Monday, the judge and lawyers will return to court to discuss potential damages and restructuring of OpenAI.
• Musk was thousands of miles away from the federal courthouse in Oakland as closing arguments began Thursday. He joined President Trump's trip to Beijing this week without informing the judge, who had placed him on "recall status" after his testimony concluded April 30.
• On Tuesday, Altman testified that Musk wanted "total control" over any for-profit future for OpenAI. According to a post from Times tech reporter Mike Isaac, Altman also said that during a high-stakes meeting about potentially folding OpenAI into Tesla, there was "a LONG long period of time with Elon showing us memes on his phone." The court reporter had to "ask him to repeat 'MEMES ON HIS PHONE' loudly," Isaac wrote.
• Altman's credibility has been a recurring theme in the trial, but this particular anecdote tracks with Musk's own public stance, Futurism notes. He has previously declared that memes "are the most information-dense form of communication."