World’s richest man Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have been putting up their legal dukes for weeks now (1), since April 27.
At the core of the feud is Musk’s belief that he’s entitled (2) to a large portion of OpenAI’s eye-watering valuation, following the company’s bid to become a for-profit entity.
But as the billionaires battle it out in court, a steady drip of plush memory foam, throw pillows and “cooling” cushions has migrated into the gallery.
WIRED senior writer Paresh Dave has spent nearly three weeks on those benches and did the brave work of cataloguing the inventory (3).
About 10 people on the defense side — including Altman, OpenAI’s general counsel Che Chang and chief futurist Joshua Achiam — have leaned on thick black cushions from Purple, which retail for $120 (4).
OpenAI President Greg Brockman and his wife, Anna, brought their own white Coop alternative-down throw pillows, sold in two-packs for $35 (5).
A trial too big to skip — and too long to sit through
Musk filed his lawsuit in 2024, alleging that Altman and Brockman betrayed OpenAI’s founding principles to remain a nonprofit entity when they restructured the ChatGPT-maker to operate a for-profit subsidiary in December of that year (6). Musk’s lawyers are seeking as much as $134 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, citing a financial economist’s calculation that he is entitled to a share of the company’s then-$500 billion valuation, per a January court filing reported by the Boston Globe (7).
OpenAI is now valued at $852 billion, with an IPO targeted for the fourth quarter of this year at a price tag approaching $1 trillion (8). Given the outsized role of AI, the prominence of ChatGPT and the larger-than-life figures of Musk and Altman, who’ve been publicly feuding for years (9), it’s no surprise the trial has attracted a sizable crowd. The courtroom inside the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building (10) has been packed close to its 150-person capacity throughout, with about 90 of those seats located on the gallery’s hardwood benches.
A soft landing
US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, the justice presiding over the trial, has hosted this kind of marathon before. In May 2021, she presided over the three-week Epic Games v. Apple antitrust bench trial (11) in the same building, although COVID-era distancing rules kept the gallery sparse.
Thankfully (or rather mercifully) for those in attendance, it looks like Musk v. Altman is winding down. Both sides have rested, according to NPR (12), with closing arguments arriving Thursday before deliberations begin. Anything short of a clean OpenAI win could widen the discount on the company’s secondary share lines and complicate its IPO plans for later this year.
