"‘Requires $80 Billion to Build Martian City’: Musk Cuts Off Supply After Being Denied 51% Stake in OpenAI"

According to Watchful AI monitoring, during the second week of Musk v. OpenAI case, OpenAI CEO Brockman appeared in court on May 5th and revealed details of the 2017 negotiations between the two parties regarding control rights that led to a breakdown. Brockman publicly disclosed OpenAI's computing power bill for the first time in court: escalating from around $30 million in 2017 to an estimated $500 billion in 2026. In the early years, the team went through the Forbes billionaire list one by one to find willing donors, and Musk himself recognized that relying solely on charity was simply unsustainable. Both parties agreed on the necessity of transitioning to a for-profit model. The disagreement arose regarding the terms: Musk demanded a 51% stake and the CEO position, stating that he needed $80 billion to build a city on Mars, with the appreciation of OpenAI's equity being one of the fundraising avenues.

During a meeting in August 2017, Altman proposed an equal split of equity among the four founders, which Musk immediately rejected. He told the team, "You are all very talented, but I can start another AI company tomorrow." When the founding team later suggested that he could purchase additional shares at market price, Musk became furious. "He suddenly stood up and charged towards me, I really thought he was going to hit me," Brockman recalled in court. Musk eventually picked up a Tesla artwork drawn by former Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever, slammed the door, and abruptly announced the termination of the previously committed quarterly donations.