Unsealed Court Documents Reveal Tech Billionaires' Internal Deliberations and Messy Texts
Elon Musk v. Sam Altman is headed for a jury trial, and it's also producing a fascinating paper trail from OpenAI's early days.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Elon Musk v. Sam Altman—yes, that is the real, shorthand case name—should proceed to a jury trial.
Originally filed in August 2024, Musk’s lawsuit alleges that OpenAI cofounders Altman and Greg Brockman deceived Musk (also a cofounder) during the organization’s early days, when it was solely a nonprofit. Musk wanted it to remain a nonprofit, but his fellow cofounders had other ideas, he alleges. OpenAI was “nurtured in its infancy by Musk’s money, advice, recruiting efforts and connections,” Musk’s legal team wrote in an amended complaint, but “at the direction of Altman, Brockman, and Microsoft, [OpenAI is] fast becoming a fully for-profit subsidiary of Microsoft.” Musk has accused OpenAI of breach of contract and fraud, among other allegations, and has also roped in Microsoft as a co-defendant.
OpenAI tried its darnedest to kill this case. In a recent request for summary judgment, attorneys for Altman and OpenAI lamented how Musk’s lawsuit was “filed with maximum press fanfare and the promise of proving up an egregious series of misrepresentation,” but ultimately, “the evidence just isn’t there. And never was.”
Gonzalez Rogers doesn’t appear to agree. Her ruling in favor of a jury trial is based in part on evidence she reviewed. That evidence includes old journal entries from Brockman, where he wrote about someday becoming a billionaire—not the sort of daydream you might expect from the cofounder of an altruistic nonprofit.
Hundreds of pages of discovery—including emails, texts, and Slack messages among OpenAI higher-ups, as well as depositions from fall 2025—were unsealed last week, shortly before Gonzalez Rogers’ ruling. I went through the filings, and while I didn’t spot anything revelatory, I did mark down interesting and entertaining tidbits. A compilation of greatest hits is below, with two notes:
Business Insider was the first outlet to report on the unsealed filings.
It’s very possible some of the unsealed filings were previously covered by other journalists who obtained internal documents/communications from OpenAI insiders. There’s lots of great, already existing reporting about OpenAI, and it’s hard to keep track of it all! I’m belatedly reading Karen Hao’s Empire of AI, and cannot recommend it enough.
Elon Musk thinks Jeff Bezos was, and is, a tool
Two billionaires obsessed with firing rockets into space do not like each other. During Musk’s September 2025 deposition, he was asked about his tenure on OpenAI’s board in the late 2010s. On behalf of OpenAI, did he ever solicit funds from Bezos, then the world’s richest man?
Musk: Well, I didn’t call Jeff, because, you know, he’s a bit of a—I’m not sure he’s [likely] to be favorable because he’s got a rocket company that competes with mine. [Editor’s note: the transcript says “likes me,” which I believe is a transcription error. For clarity, I updated to “likely.”]
Attorney: And I think the word you used at the time was Jeff was a tool.
Musk: Yeah. He can be, you know.
Attorney: Now–
Musk: There’s a redemption arc for all of us.
Elon Musk’s attorney sadly prevented him from pontificating
I have not participated in a deposition, but my understanding is that in such scenarios, it’s in your best interest to 1. be truthful and 2. keep your answers short and concise. Rambling is not advised, as Musk’s attorney had to remind him.
Attorney: So on September 24, 2020, you thought Microsoft had captured OpenAI, right?
Musk: That’s what it seemed like. But, yeah, I do predict the tables will turn and ultimately—
Musk’s attorney: Wait until he asks you a question.
Musk: Yeah. Sorry. Fair enough.
OpenAI higher-ups sent matching, deeply embarrassing emails to Elon Musk
On New Years Day 2018, Brockman and Ilya Sutskever (another OpenAI co-founder) sent Musk separate emails profusely thanking him for his wisdom and guidance. Brockman and Sutskever BCC’d each other, presumably so they could measure their respective suck-up efforts.
Sutskever: Hi Elon, We’ve been working together for almost exactly two years, so it felt appropriate to send this note. I enjoy working together. You quickly pushed me out of my academic comfort zone. With time, I grew to appreciate the vast depth of your strategic insight—I can think of many examples, the biggest one is the decision to build the custom hardware. I’ve made my share of non-negligible mistakes in 2017, but their lessons will help us overcome the harder challenges of the future. We’re trying to accomplish a difficult task, but with effort, we may be able to do it. It helps that we have the most overwhelmingly competent person in the world helping us. Happy 2018. Let’s make 2017 pale in comparison.
Brockman: Hi Elon, We’ve been working together for 2 years now, and in every meeting with you I continue to learn, grow, and see the world in a new way. I particularly admire your clarity of purpose, the simple and consistent heuristics you use to evaluate decisions, and that you stick to what’s right rather than what’s easy. I am grateful and humbled that you see potential in Ilya and me and are willing to give us a chance. 2017 was a hard year, and we’ve made mistakes, but I believe the lessons we’ve learned will ultimately make us successful in our mission. It’s an honor to work alongside you. Let’s make sure that the post-AGI world is one that is good for humans.
OpenAI higher-ups exchanged Slack messages about how much to care about “public opinion”
An October 2022 Slack conversation featuring Brockman, former CTO Mira Murati, and Altman provides a somewhat alarming glimpse into how the people who run the world’s most valuable private company think about public opinion and the “need to make” unpopular decisions, as Altman phrased it. Interestingly, one of Altman’s remarks in the Slack thread—that public firestorms can “cause internal distraction and churn”—came to pass a year later in November 2023, when he was temporarily booted from OpenAI by the board of directors.
Brockman: btw one of my great fears is we become beholden to public opinion, and one of my hopes is e.g. that we cause some firestorm in the future where we stick to our guns since we are in the right
Brockman: i think that basically means do what mira just said
Brockman: i.e. do it in a way we’ll feel good about even with whoever chooses to hate it
Brockman: but don’t just yolo and say opinion doesn’t matter
After some brief back-and-forth in the Slack thread, Murati returns to Brockman’s comments.
Mira Murati: I agree with you in the principle of making a decision, feeling good about it and sticking to it even if people disagree. I don’t think we’re beholden to public opinion. I think we lack conviction in many decisions and flip flop, that’s what I see as bigger problem.
Altman: absolutely think we should stick to our guns. however given that constraint i think we should try to have the world on our side when we can, and we underestimate the value of that and what our comms effort has accomplished in a very difficult environment
Altman: we have made plenty of unpopular decisions and will need to make many more
Brockman: ok! i can accept all of that
Altman: but firestorms for no good reason just cause internal distraction and churn imo
Brockman: just to be clear, do you think i believe otherwise?
Altman: no just stating my views since you asked how it resonates.
Sam Altman sent crabby texts to Elon Musk about the fate of civilization
Among other things, Altman is infamous for his millennial-coded lower-case social media posts. Apparently, this stylized messaging applies to his private texts, too. In February 2023, well after Musk departed from OpenAI, Altman reached out to his former colleague to grumble about Musk’s public critiques—and also acknowledge Musk’s instrumental role in getting OpenAI off the ground. (Altman has some typos in this one which I’m leaving in for accuracy’s sake.)
Altman: i remember seeing you in a tv interview a long time ago (maybe 60 minutes?) where you being attacked by some guys, and you said they were heroes of yours and it was really tough.
well, you’re my hero and that’s what it feels like when you attack openai. totally get we have some screwed some stuff up, but we have worked incredibly hard to do the right thing, and i think we have ensured that neither google nor anyone else is on a path to have unilateral control over AGI, which I believe we both think is critical.
i am tremendously thankful for everything you’ve done to help—i don’t think openai would have happened without you—and it really fucking hurts when you publicly attack openai.
Musk: I hear you and it is certainly not my intention to be hurtful, for which I apologize, but the fate of civilization is at stake.
Altman: i agree with that, and i would really love to hear the things you think we should be doing differently/better.
it’s also not clear to me how the attacks on twitter help the fate of civilization, but that’s less important to me that getting to the right substance.
also, i checked with our team on recruiting from tesla. we really are doing very little relative to the size of the company, but i will make sure we don’t hurt tesla, i obviously think it’s a super important company.
Elon Musk allegedly complained about not being included in an OpenAI anniversary photo
During his deposition, Altman recalled how he posted a photo on X celebrating OpenAI’s beginnings. According to Altman, he soon received a DM from Musk “expressing displeasure about not being mentioned… in my telling of OpenAI.” More from Altman is below.
Altman: Elon is extremely sensitive to his personal reputation, and he had made—so he made a pointed comment about how he wasn’t—you know, shouldn’t he be in this photo or something like that? And also, he had made a number of other comments to me about how he felt like he was not getting enough of the credit for OpenAI. He had mentioned to me articles where OpenAI was written about, and he didn’t think he was mentioned prominently enough in the article or in, you know, some part of the story. I think of myself as someone who tries to be very generous with credit.
I believe I replied to that message from him with a statement about, “Hey, I’m—you know, meant no offense on this photo here. Obviously, everyone knows you are extremely involved in OpenAI. And I’m, you know, happy to tweet out some other thing with a photo of you there.” And then he had sent some more messages about that.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella paid Elon Musk a hilariously backhanded compliment
Because Microsoft was roped into Musk v. Altman, the company’s CEO, Satya Nadella, gave a deposition in September 2025. He was asked about his relationship with Musk, which he described as professional, not personal. An attorney brought up how, as early as 2015, Nadella seemed to be aware of Musk’s concerns about the need for safety guardrails around the development and employment of AI. Nadella’s polite and meandering rebuttal could best be summed up as: It’s hard to discern Musk’s opinions because he’s weird and talks about all sorts of stuff.
Nadella: I mean, I personally didn’t focus that much on Elon’s concerns about AI because at some level mostly, at least my study of Elon, has always been about, you know, his philosophy of engineering, you know, being a fan of how he has approached how he likes to build. So I’ve never thought about—you know, I mean, Elon is a pretty idiosyncratic guy in the sense he has a lot of opinions on lots of things, but what I have found to be most inspiring is how he goes about building what he does. So I mostly focus my efforts on studying that, versus his wide-ranging opinions on a lot of topics.
Greg Brockman did a little too much journaling
Journaling is a great reflection tool and an opportunity to jot down private, intimate thoughts. But if you plan on becoming a billionaire and the number one donor to President Donald Trump’s super PAC, you ought to keep in mind that you have a much higher chance of getting sued over something or other someday, and then you might have to pass along your journal during the discovery phase of a lawsuit.
It seems Brockman, the president of OpenAI, did not think that far ahead. More so, he was thinking about becoming a billionaire. So now, we can all read about his lofty wealth goals. During Brockman’s deposition, attorneys referenced one of his old journal entries from when OpenAI leadership was considering a transition to a for-profit structure:
Attorney: Why did you write “Financially, what will take me to 1 billion?”
Brockman: I think if we were going to do a for-profit entity, that I started to think about what would be motivating financial reward in that case as a secondary consideration.
Attorney: What was the primary consideration?
Brockman: Primary consideration was would we be able to pursue and achieve the mission.
Attorney: How important was the secondary consideration to you?
Brockman: The second consideration definitely mattered.
Attorney: At this point, did you aspire to be a billionaire?
Brockman: My primary motivation was to the mission.
Attorney: Was your secondary motivation to be a billionaire?
Brockman: I believe that as a—one thing I was definitely motivated by was the idea—I definitely had as a motivation that, yeah, potentially getting to $1 billion.
Attorney: So we know you achieved that goal at some point. Do you know precisely what day that happened?
Brockman: I do not know what day precisely that happened.
In another journal entry cited by Judge Gonzalez Rogers as part of her ruling to proceed to a jury trial, Brockman wrote, “We’ve been thinking that maybe we should just flip to a for profit. Making the money for us sounds great and all.”
The jury trial for Musk v. Altman is tentatively set for March, according to TechCrunch. An OpenAI spokesperson told TechCrunch that Musk’s lawsuit is “baseless and a part of his ongoing pattern of harassment.”