OpenAI president claims Elon Musk wanted control to fund $80bn Mars colonisation plan

OpenAI President Greg Brockman testified in a California courtroom on Tuesday that Elon Musk backed converting OpenAI into a for-profit company, but only if he was granted full control to help raise $80 billion for his long-term ambition of building a self-sustaining city on Mars.

Brockman’s testimony came during the second week of Musk’s high-stakes lawsuit against OpenAI and Chief Executive Sam Altman, in which the billionaire alleges he was misled into donating $38 million to the nonprofit before it abandoned its charitable mission and evolved into a profit-driven artificial intelligence giant.

Musk is seeking $150 billion in damages to be paid to the nonprofit and has also asked the court to remove Altman and Brockman from leadership positions.

Under questioning by OpenAI’s legal team, Brockman said Musk argued in 2017 that a nonprofit structure would struggle to raise the vast sums needed to build advanced AI systems.

According to Brockman, Musk supported restructuring OpenAI but insisted that he become its leader with majority ownership.

“He said he needed $80 billion to create a city on Mars. In the end, he needed full control,” Brockman told the court, adding that Musk wanted the authority to decide when, if ever, to relinquish that control.

Brockman also described a tense internal meeting in which Musk demanded a dominant equity stake, citing his record of building multibillion-dollar companies and his intention to use that stake to support a self-sustaining Martian colony.

Brockman said Musk became visibly angry when OpenAI’s founders resisted the proposal.

The closely watched trial could shape the legal and operational future of OpenAI, whose rise accelerated globally after the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022.