Elon Musk spent nearly three days on the witness stand this week in his high-profile lawsuit against OpenAI, and the courtroom drama is already intensifying. Emails, text messages, and even Musk's own tweets have been presented as evidence, with more witnesses yet to testify. Musk's central argument: by shifting from a nonprofit to a for-profit structure, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman violated the original mission of benefiting humanity—a cause Musk says he helped fund. As Musk repeatedly told the court, "You can't steal a charity."
On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec and Sean O'Kane dissect the key stakes in the case, what to watch for when Altman and others take the stand, and the broader implications for AI governance. The episode also covers:
- Why cloud services emerged as the big winner during Big Tech's earnings week, and what AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft's numbers reveal about where enterprise AI spending is actually flowing.
- The founder of a scholarship app taking Sallie Mae to court after his startup was acquired and allegedly began selling student data to ad networks and universities.
- BMW i Ventures' new $300 million fund, with a strong focus on AI investments.
- How defense tech startup Scout AI is pitching "military AGI" using vision-language-action (VLA) models, after raising $100 million.
Tune in to the full episode for in-depth analysis and exclusive insights.