New materials from the trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI gradually reveal not only the internal history of the conflict between the startup’s co-founders, but also the deeper transformation of the entire artificial intelligence industry. The testimony of the trial participants suggests that the dispute has long gone beyond ideological disagreements over OpenAI’s humanitarian mission and now largely centers on control over one of the world’s most valuable AI infrastructures. The first series of testimonies related to Musk’s attempts to gain influence over OpenAI back in 2017 forms the key context for what is happening. The struggle for AI was initially viewed not as a research project, but as a long-term source of technological and financial power.
Court documents show that Musk not only supported the idea of commercializing OpenAI, but also considered the possibility of integrating the startup into Tesla’s structure. According to Shivon Zilis, a former member of OpenAI’s board of directors, even the potential transfer of a Tesla board seat to Sam Altman was discussed in the event of such a restructuring. In practice, it was an attempt to combine AI developments with Musk’s existing industrial and infrastructure platform. At an early stage, this could have turned Tesla into one of the first vertically integrated AI holdings, combining computing power, autonomous transport, and applied AI models — a structure that could have significantly affected the company’s valuation and Tesla stock performance.
However, control became the main point of division between Musk and OpenAI’s leadership. According to the testimony of startup president Greg Brockman, Musk insisted on gaining full operational influence over the company and was ready to support OpenAI’s transition to a commercial structure only if he held a dominant role. After his partners rejected the proposal, the conflict quickly began to move from a strategic disagreement to a personal confrontation. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly clear that even then, OpenAI was facing a fundamental problem of the entire modern AI industry: the inability to scale research without switching to a commercial financing model.
The financial dynamics of OpenAI only highlight this transformation. If in 2017 the company spent about $30 million on computing power, then by 2026 infrastructure costs are expected to reach $50 billion, while total investments by the end of the decade may approach $600 billion. In effect, OpenAI is finally turning from a research organization into a capital-intensive infrastructure corporation, comparable in investment scale to the largest cloud providers and semiconductor manufacturers. The anticipated OpenAI IPO is becoming a logical continuation of this process, as the current development model requires constant access to external capital that can no longer be secured solely through private investment.
Against this backdrop, Musk’s accusations of mission betrayal appear increasingly contradictory. On the one hand, the published excerpts from Brockman’s diaries do indicate that the management of OpenAI viewed commercialization as an inevitable stage of development back in 2017. On the other hand, the sheer scale of modern AI costs actually confirms that an alternative non-commercial model would have been hardly viable under current conditions. AI infrastructure is gradually becoming so capital intensive that it requires either integration with major corporations or access to public capital markets.
At the same time, the conflict itself is shifting to the area of corporate governance and future value allocation. Attempts by Musk’s lawyers to present the multibillion-dollar stakes of Brockman and Altman as evidence of personal interest reflect a broader question: who will ultimately benefit economically from the development of AI? OpenAI’s current valuation, estimated at about $850 billion, turns internal disputes over the management structure into a struggle for control of a potentially trillion-dollar asset.
The parallel development of Musk’s own ecosystem adds further symbolism to the situation. The combination of xAI, the social X platform, and infrastructure projects around SpaceX shows that Musk himself is gradually moving toward the model that was once proposed for OpenAI. Moreover, the terms of the additional compensation package approved by the SpaceX board of directors — tied to a capitalization target of $7.5 trillion and the creation of a colony on Mars — demonstrate how closely AI, infrastructure, and long-term megaprojects are becoming intertwined in the modern technology industry.
Collectively, the litigation surrounding OpenAI looks less and less like a dispute over the initial agreements between co-founders and more like an early stage in the redistribution of power within the global AI economy. As capital expenditures increase and computing resources concentrate, the key asset is no longer the algorithms alone, but the ability to control infrastructure, financing, and technology-scaling channels. That is why the conflict between Musk, Altman, and Brockman is gaining significance far beyond a single startup. It reflects the AI industry’s transition from a research model to one built around ultra-capital-intensive technology platforms, where the struggle for influence inevitably turns into a struggle for the trillion-dollar markets of the future.
David Prior
David Prior is the editor of Today News, responsible for the overall editorial strategy. He is an NCTJ-qualified journalist with over 20 years’ experience, and is also editor of the award-winning hyperlocal news title Altrincham Today. His LinkedIn profile is here.
