OpenAI president Greg Brockman's private journal has become the focal point of Elon Musk's lawsuit against the artificial intelligence company, with entries written nearly a decade ago now being read aloud to a federal jury in Oakland, California.
Musk's lawyers used the diary to portray Brockman as a co-founder who was privately fantasising about personal wealth even as OpenAI, the company behind the ChatGPT chatbot, was receiving millions of dollars in charitable donations from Musk.
One entry from 2017 asked bluntly what it would take for Brockman to reach a net worth of $1 billion, while another discussed the idea of converting OpenAI from a non-profit into a for-profit entity.
Brockman, who confirmed on the stand that his current stake in OpenAI is worth nearly $30 billion, described the writings as private, stream-of-consciousness notes never intended for public consumption.
He told the court the entries were deeply personal and painful to have exposed, but insisted there was nothing in them he was ashamed of.
Musk is suing OpenAI, Brockman and chief executive Sam Altman, alleging the pair enriched themselves by converting what was founded as a non-profit charity into a commercial enterprise now valued at more than $850 billion by private investors.
He is seeking up to $134 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, which is also named as a defendant, and wants the for-profit restructuring reversed and both Altman and Brockman removed from their roles.
Musk, who donated roughly $38 million to OpenAI in its early years, left the board in 2018 and went on to found xAI, a rival AI company he later merged with SpaceX in a deal valuing the combined entity at more than $1.2 trillion.
The trial entered its second week with Brockman's testimony lasting most of Monday and set to resume on Tuesday.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who previously referenced the diary entries when denying OpenAI's motion to block the trial, has warned lawyers on both sides to keep proceedings focused on the core contractual and fiduciary questions rather than broader debates about AI safety.
OpenAI said in a blog post that Musk's legal team had cherry-picked quotes from the journal and stripped them of context, while Brockman posted a thread on X offering his own account of the entries.
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The trial is expected to run for four weeks, with Altman, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella and former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati among those expected to testify.
It also emerged that Musk texted Brockman two days before the trial began to explore a settlement, but when Brockman suggested both sides simply drop their claims, Musk reportedly replied that by the end of the week, Brockman and Altman would be the most hated men in America.
The recap
- Brockman’s personal diary used as key trial evidence
- Musk seeks $134 billion distributed to OpenAI’s non-profit
- Judge cited diary when denying OpenAI’s pre-trial motion
