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The Trial Files
Musk v. Altman
Volume I · Dramatis Personae

The Parties.

Brief biographies of the seven individuals who appear in the archive — the plaintiffs, defendants, and material witnesses whose correspondence forms the record.

EM
Plaintiff
Sent
13 threads
Appears in
17 threads

Elon Musk

Co-founder, Board Member, Funder · Tesla / SpaceX / OpenAI
<elon@teslamotors.com>

Co-founded OpenAI in late 2015 alongside Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever and others. Provided the majority of the seed, Series A and most of the Series B funding. In 2017 demanded majority equity, absolute control, and the CEO title for a new for-profit OpenAI structure. Resigned from the board in February 2018 after his terms were rejected. Started xAI in March 2023, and has since filed multiple lawsuits against OpenAI, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others alleging breach of the founding agreement.

Selected correspondence
SA
Defendant
Sent
8 threads
Appears in
14 threads

Sam Altman

Co-founder, CEO · Y Combinator / OpenAI
<sam@openai.com>

President of Y Combinator at the time of OpenAI's founding. Initiated the original conversation with Elon Musk in May 2015 about starting a 'Manhattan Project' for AI. Became CEO of OpenAI LP in 2019 when the capped-profit subsidiary was created. Defendant in Musk v. Altman (2024).

Selected correspondence
GB
Defendant
Sent
1 threads
Appears in
9 threads

Greg Brockman

Co-founder, CTO, President · OpenAI
<gdb@openai.com>

Former CTO of Stripe. Co-founded OpenAI as its first CTO. Was central to early hiring, fundraising and structural negotiations. Later Chairman and President of OpenAI LP. A named defendant in Musk's lawsuits.

Selected correspondence
IS
Defendant
Sent
3 threads
Appears in
8 threads

Ilya Sutskever

Co-founder, Chief Scientist · Google Brain → OpenAI
<ilya@openai.com>

Co-author of AlexNet and seq2seq, recruited from Google Brain to be Chief Scientist of OpenAI. Author of the September 20, 2017 'Honest Thoughts' email that triggered Elon's exit. Left OpenAI in May 2024 to found Safe Superintelligence Inc.

Selected correspondence
SZ
Material Witness
Sent
2 threads
Appears in
2 threads

Shivon Zilis

Liaison to Elon Musk · Neuralink / OpenAI Board
<shivon@neuralink.com>

Director at Neuralink. Operated as a liaison between Elon Musk and OpenAI during the 2017 negotiations. Many of the most candid memos in the archive are from her, summarizing private conversations with Greg Brockman and Sam Altman.

Selected correspondence
AK
Material Witness
Sent
1 threads
Appears in
1 threads

Andrej Karpathy

Research Scientist → Director of AI, Tesla · OpenAI → Tesla
<andrej@openai.com>

Founding member of OpenAI. Left in June 2017 to lead Tesla's Autopilot/AI team. His January 2018 memo arguing OpenAI should attach to Tesla as 'its cash cow' is a pivotal document in the archive.

Selected correspondence
ST
Material Witness
Sent
0 threads
Appears in
2 threads

Sam Teller

Chief of Staff to Elon Musk · Tesla
<teller@teslamotors.com>

Elon Musk's long-time chief of staff. CC'd on most of Musk's OpenAI correspondence and frequently relayed messages between Musk and external parties.

Selected correspondence