Elon Musk and Sam Altman are going to court over OpenAI’s future
Elon Musk and Sam Altman are going to court over OpenAI’s future
埃隆·马斯克与萨姆·奥特曼因 OpenAI 的未来对簿公堂
After a yearslong legal feud, Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are heading to trial this week in Northern California in a case that could have sweeping consequences. Ahead of OpenAI’s highly anticipated IPO, the court could rule on whether the company is allowed to exist as a for-profit enterprise and might even oust its current executive leadership, including Altman. 经过多年的法律纠纷，埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）与 OpenAI 首席执行官萨姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）本周将在北加州出庭受审，此案可能产生深远影响。在 OpenAI 备受期待的首次公开募股（IPO）前夕，法院可能会裁定该公司是否获准以营利性企业的身份存在，甚至可能罢免包括奥特曼在内的现任高管团队。
Musk is suing OpenAI, alleging that Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman deceived him into bankrolling the company in its early days by promising to maintain it as a nonprofit dedicated to developing AI that benefits humanity, only to later restructure the company to operate a for-profit subsidiary. Musk cofounded OpenAI with Altman and others in 2015, but he left in 2018 after a bitter power struggle. 马斯克起诉 OpenAI，指控奥特曼和 OpenAI 总裁格雷格·布罗克曼（Greg Brockman）在公司成立初期欺骗他进行注资，承诺将其维持为一家致力于开发造福人类的 AI 的非营利组织，随后却重组公司并运营营利性子公司。马斯克于 2015 年与奥特曼等人共同创立了 OpenAI，但在经历了一场激烈的权力斗争后，于 2018 年离开。
Musk is seeking as much as $134 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, one of OpenAI’s biggest financial backers. He is also asking the court to remove Altman and Brockman from their roles and to restore OpenAI as a nonprofit. Musk has asked the court to award any damages to OpenAI’s nonprofit rather than to him personally. 马斯克正向 OpenAI 及其最大的财务支持者之一微软寻求高达 1340 亿美元的赔偿。他还要求法院罢免奥特曼和布罗克曼的职务，并将 OpenAI 恢复为非营利组织。马斯克已请求法院将任何赔偿金判给 OpenAI 的非营利部门，而非他个人。
Nine jurors will deliver an advisory verdict, a non-binding recommendation, to guide the judge in deciding Musk’s claims against Altman. Musk, Altman, and Brockman will take the stand. Former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella are also expected to testify. 九名陪审员将提供一份咨询性裁决（即无约束力的建议），以指导法官对马斯克针对奥特曼的诉讼请求做出裁决。马斯克、奥特曼和布罗克曼将出庭作证。前 OpenAI 首席科学家伊利亚·苏茨克维（Ilya Sutskever）、前 OpenAI 首席技术官米拉·穆拉蒂（Mira Murati）以及微软首席执行官萨提亚·纳德拉（Satya Nadella）也预计将出庭作证。
Cringey texts, raw diary entries, and endless scheming behind the founding and growth of OpenAI are expected to come to light. In an industry enveloped in secrecy, the trial will be a rare opportunity for the public to look behind the curtain and find out what’s going on in the companies creating the most transformative technology ever built. 令人尴尬的短信、原始日记条目以及 OpenAI 创立和成长背后的无尽阴谋预计将公之于众。在一个被秘密笼罩的行业中，此次审判将是公众难得的机会，可以揭开幕布，一探这些创造了史上最具变革性技术的公司内部究竟发生了什么。
What are they fighting about? When OpenAI was originally founded as a nonprofit, backed by a $38 million donation from Musk, the company vowed to create open-source technology for the public’s benefit, unconstrained by a need to generate financial returns. But over the years, the company began to believe that intensifying competition could make it dangerous to share how it develops its AI models and that a nonprofit structure could not raise enough money to keep building AI. (MIT Technology Review was first to report on OpenAI’s internal conflicts around its mission.) 他们在争论什么？当 OpenAI 最初作为非营利组织成立并获得马斯克 3800 万美元捐款支持时，该公司承诺为公众利益创造开源技术，不受产生财务回报需求的束缚。但多年来，该公司开始认为，日益激烈的竞争可能使得分享其 AI 模型开发方式变得危险，且非营利结构无法筹集到足够的资金来持续构建 AI。（《麻省理工科技评论》率先报道了 OpenAI 围绕其使命的内部冲突。）
The court has already found that in 2017 Altman and Brockman wanted to establish a for-profit arm, while Musk proposed merging OpenAI with his electric-car company, Tesla. When Musk threatened to stop funding, Altman and Brockman told him that they were committed to keeping the company a nonprofit. Musk alleges that they pursued plans to pivot to a for-profit without sufficiently informing him. 法院此前已查明，2017 年奥特曼和布罗克曼希望建立一个营利性部门，而马斯克则提议将 OpenAI 与他的电动汽车公司特斯拉合并。当马斯克威胁要停止注资时，奥特曼和布罗克曼告诉他，他们致力于保持公司的非营利性质。马斯克指控他们在未充分告知他的情况下，推进了转向营利性的计划。
According to OpenAI, Musk agreed that the company needed a for-profit entity and even wanted to be its CEO. But even if Musk proves he was duped by Altman and Brockman, he may not have standing in the first place to sue them for restructuring the company to operate a for-profit subsidiary. Some legal scholars are puzzled over why the judge allowed him to bring this claim. 据 OpenAI 称，马斯克曾同意公司需要一个营利性实体，甚至想担任其首席执行官。但即使马斯克证明自己被奥特曼和布罗克曼欺骗，他最初可能也没有资格起诉他们重组公司以运营营利性子公司。一些法律学者对法官为何允许他提出这一诉讼请求感到困惑。
“The idea that Elon Musk can sue because he was a donor or used to be on the board is pretty puzzling,” says Jill Horwitz, a law professor who studies nonprofit law at Northwestern University. “Typically, it’s up to the attorneys general to bring such a claim to enforce the charitable purposes. And that’s already happened.” “埃隆·马斯克仅仅因为曾是捐赠者或曾任董事会成员就能起诉，这个想法非常令人费解，”西北大学研究非营利法的一位法学教授吉尔·霍维茨（Jill Horwitz）表示。“通常情况下，由总检察长提起此类诉讼以执行慈善宗旨。而这种情况已经发生了。”
In October 2025, state attorneys general of California, where OpenAI is headquartered, and Delaware, where OpenAI is incorporated, struck a deal with OpenAI to approve its new corporate structure on a series of conditions. For example, a safety and security committee at the nonprofit would review safety-related decisions made by the for-profit subsidiary. 2025 年 10 月，OpenAI 总部所在地加利福尼亚州和注册地特拉华州的总检察长与 OpenAI 达成协议，在满足一系列条件的前提下批准了其新的公司结构。例如，非营利组织的安全委员会将审查营利性子公司做出的与安全相关的决策。
Critics of the restructuring, including Musk, AI safety advocates, and civil society groups, have tried to stop it. California’s attorney general has declined to join Musk’s lawsuit, saying that the office did not see how his action serves the public interest. Still, whether the deals hold OpenAI to its nonprofit mission is an open question. 包括马斯克、AI 安全倡导者和公民社会团体在内的重组批评者曾试图阻止这一进程。加州总检察长拒绝加入马斯克的诉讼，称其办公室看不出他的行为如何符合公共利益。尽管如此，这些协议是否能让 OpenAI 坚守其非营利使命仍是一个悬而未决的问题。
“Elon Musk should have to show … what the deficiencies are in what’s been agreed to by OpenAI with the attorneys general,” says Rose Chan Loui, the director of the UCLA School of Law’s philanthropy and nonprofit program. Even with the terms in place, holding OpenAI to them depends on “how much they can enforce it and how much transparency they get into OpenAI’s work.” “埃隆·马斯克必须证明……OpenAI 与总检察长达成的协议存在哪些缺陷，”加州大学洛杉矶分校法学院慈善与非营利项目主任罗斯·陈·路易（Rose Chan Loui）表示。即使有了这些条款，能否让 OpenAI 遵守这些条款取决于“他们能在多大程度上执行，以及他们能获得多少 OpenAI 工作流程的透明度。”
More importantly, legal experts say the case is being considered under the wrong body of law. Musk argues that Altman and Brockman breached OpenAI’s charitable trust by creating a closed-source, for-profit subsidiary. As a result, the court has been analyzing the claim under the law of trusts. “But OpenAI is not a trust. OpenAI is a corporation. And so really they should be looking at … the law of charitable nonprofit organizations,” says Chan Loui. 更重要的是，法律专家表示，此案所依据的法律体系有误。马斯克辩称，奥特曼和布罗克曼通过创建闭源的营利性子公司违反了 OpenAI 的慈善信托。因此，法院一直根据信托法来分析这一诉讼请求。“但 OpenAI 不是信托，OpenAI 是一家公司。所以他们真正应该审视的是……慈善非营利组织法，”陈·路易说道。
What’s on the line? Despite all the legal muddiness, the outcome of the trial could upend the AI race. Any one of the remedies that Musk seeks could cripple OpenAI as it races to go public by the end of the year. OpenAI, which is valued at over $850 billion, has described the litigation with Musk as a potential risk to its business. 赌注是什么？尽管法律层面存在诸多混乱，但审判结果可能会颠覆 AI 竞赛。马斯克寻求的任何补救措施都可能在 OpenAI 冲刺年底上市之际对其造成重创。估值超过 8500 亿美元的 OpenAI 已将与马斯克的诉讼描述为其业务的潜在风险。
Musk’s rival company xAI, which makes the chatbot Grok, is expected to go public as a part of his rocket company SpaceX as early as June. If Musk prevails, xAI, which in combination with SpaceX is valued at $1.25 trillion, could get a big advantage in the AI race. And the trial has helped expose the bitter schism between Musk and the company he once helped to found. 马斯克的竞争对手公司 xAI（开发了聊天机器人 Grok）预计最早将于 6 月作为其火箭公司 SpaceX 的一部分上市。如果马斯克胜诉，与 SpaceX 合并后估值达 1.25 万亿美元的 xAI 可能在 AI 竞赛中获得巨大优势。此次审判也揭示了马斯克与他曾经参与创立的公司之间那道痛苦的裂痕。
An OpenAI spokesperson referred MIT Technology Review to a post on X: “This lawsuit has always been a baseless and jealous bid to derail a competitor.” Although Musk’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment, he has posted on X that “Scam Altman lies as easily as he breathes.” OpenAI 发言人向《麻省理工科技评论》指引了 X 平台的一篇帖子：“这场诉讼一直是一场毫无根据且出于嫉妒的企图，旨在破坏竞争对手。”尽管马斯克的律师没有立即回应置评请求，但他在 X 上发帖称：“骗子奥特曼撒谎就像呼吸一样容易。”