内容来源：https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/04/27/1136466/elon-musk-and-sam-altman-are-going-to-court-over-openais-future/

内容总结：

马斯克与奥特曼对簿公堂：OpenAI未来走向成焦点

本周，埃隆·马斯克与OpenAI首席执行官萨姆·奥特曼将在美国加州北区联邦法院正式对簿公堂，这场官司可能对OpenAI乃至整个人工智能（AI）竞赛产生深远影响。

马斯克指控奥特曼及OpenAI总裁格雷格·布罗克曼在早期欺骗他出资支持公司，当时承诺保持非营利性质，致力于开发造福人类的AI技术。然而，公司随后却重组为营利性实体。马斯克于2015年与奥特曼等人共同创立OpenAI，但在2018年因权力斗争离开。

马斯克正寻求高达1340亿美元的赔偿，索赔对象包括OpenAI及其主要投资者微软。他还要求法院解除奥特曼和布罗克曼的职务，并恢复OpenAI的非营利地位。马斯克表示，任何赔偿金都应归入OpenAI的非营利机构，而非他个人。

九名陪审员将给出咨询性裁决，为法官判决提供参考。马斯克、奥特曼和布罗克曼将出庭作证，前OpenAI首席科学家伊利亚·苏茨克沃、前CTO米拉·穆拉蒂及微软CEO萨提亚·纳德拉预计也将出庭。庭审有望曝光大量内部邮件、日记和创业内幕。

核心争议：非营利初心与营利现实的冲突

OpenAI最初作为非营利机构成立，获马斯克捐赠3800万美元，承诺开发开源技术造福公众。但公司后来认为，在激烈竞争中公开AI模型开发方式存在风险，且非营利结构难以筹集足够资金。法庭已查明，2017年奥特曼和布罗克曼便计划成立营利性部门，马斯克则提议将OpenAI并入特斯拉。马斯克声称，当他威胁停止注资时，对方仍承诺保持非营利，但事后却转向营利模式，并未充分告知他。而OpenAI方面称，马斯克当时也同意成立营利实体，甚至想担任CEO。

法律专家指出，即便马斯克能证明被欺骗，他是否有权以捐赠者或前董事会成员身份起诉也存在疑问。西北大学法学教授吉尔·霍维茨表示，通常只有州检察长才能执行此类慈善目的诉请，而加州和特拉华州检察长已于2025年10月与OpenAI达成协议，批准其新公司结构，并附加安全审查等条件。加州检察长拒绝加入马斯克的诉讼，称其行动不符合公共利益。

案件影响：可能颠覆AI竞赛格局

不论法律争议如何，案件结果可能撼动AI行业。马斯克寻求的任何补救措施都可能影响OpenAI今年底前上市的计划。目前OpenAI估值超8500亿美元，已将诉讼列为潜在业务风险。而马斯克旗下xAI公司（聊天机器人Grok）预计最早6月随SpaceX上市，若马斯克胜诉，估值1.25万亿美元的组合企业将获得巨大优势。

庭审也暴露了马斯克与这家他曾参与创立的公司之间的深刻裂痕。OpenAI发言人在X平台发文称：“这场诉讼一直是毫无根据、出于嫉妒的企图，意在拖垮竞争对手。” 马斯克则在X上回击：“骗子奥特曼撒谎就像呼吸一样自然。”

《麻省理工科技评论》将持续追踪此案进展。

中文翻译：

埃隆·马斯克与山姆·奥特曼将对簿公堂，事关OpenAI的未来走向
马斯克称其提起诉讼是为了捍卫公司使命。此案可能对OpenAI乃至整个人工智能竞争格局产生深远影响。
历经多年的法律纠纷，埃隆·马斯克与OpenAI首席执行官山姆·奥特曼将于本周在加利福尼亚州北部法院对簿公堂，此案可能引发广泛后果。在OpenAI备受瞩目的首次公开募股前夕，法院将裁定该公司是否允许以营利性企业形式存续，甚至可能罢免包括奥特曼在内的现任高管团队。
马斯克起诉OpenAI，指控奥特曼与OpenAI总裁格雷格·布罗克曼欺骗其早期注资，当时承诺公司为非营利组织，致力于开发造福人类的人工智能技术，但随后却重组公司并设立营利性子公司。马斯克于2015年与奥特曼等人共同创立OpenAI，但因激烈的权力斗争于2018年退出。
马斯克寻求从OpenAI及其最大金主之一微软获得高达1340亿美元的赔偿。他还请求法院解除奥特曼和布罗克曼的职务，并恢复OpenAI的非营利性质。马斯克要求法院将任何赔偿金判给OpenAI的非营利实体而非其个人。
九名陪审员将给出建议性裁决（一种不具约束力的建议），以指导法官就马斯克对奥特曼的指控作出判决。马斯克、奥特曼和布罗克曼将出庭作证。前OpenAI首席科学家伊尔亚·苏茨克沃、前OpenAI首席技术官米拉·穆拉蒂以及微软首席执行官萨提亚·纳德拉预计也将提供证词。关于OpenAI创立及发展过程中尴尬的短信、原始的日记记录以及无尽的幕后策划预计将公之于众。
在一个充满保密色彩的行业中，此次审判将为公众提供一个难得的契机，得以窥探幕后，了解那些正在创造史上最具变革性技术的公司内部究竟发生了什么。

他们究竟在争什么？
OpenAI最初以非营利组织形式成立，由马斯克捐赠3800万美元作为启动资金，公司当时承诺为公众利益开发开源技术，不受财务回报需求的约束。但多年来，公司逐渐认为日益激烈的竞争可能使共享AI模型开发方式变得危险，且非营利结构无法筹集足够资金继续推进AI研发。（《麻省理工科技评论》率先报道了OpenAI在使命问题上的内部矛盾。）
法院已查明，2017年奥特曼和布罗克曼希望建立营利性分支，而马斯克则提议将OpenAI与其电动汽车公司特斯拉合并。当马斯克威胁停止注资时，奥特曼和布罗克曼向其表示仍致力于保持公司非营利性质。马斯克指控他们暗中推进转型营利计划，却未充分告知自己。而据OpenAI说法，马斯克当时同意公司需要营利实体，甚至希望亲自出任首席执行官。
但即便马斯克能证明其受奥特曼和布罗克曼欺骗，他最初是否具备起诉他们重组公司并设立营利性子公司的资格仍存疑。一些法律学者对法官允许其提出此诉求感到困惑。“埃隆·马斯克以捐赠者或前董事会成员身份提起诉讼的想法相当令人费解，”西北大学研究非营利法的法学教授吉尔·霍维茨表示，“通常应由州总检察长提出此类诉求以维护慈善宗旨。而这种情况已经发生。”
2025年10月，OpenAI总部所在地加利福尼亚州及其注册地特拉华州的州总检察长与OpenAI达成协议，以一系列条件批准其新公司架构。例如，非营利组织的安全委员会将审查营利性子公司做出的安全相关决策。包括马斯克、AI安全倡导者及民间团体在内的重组批评者试图阻止这一进程。
加州总检察长拒绝加入马斯克的诉讼，称其认为此诉讼不符合公共利益。尽管如此，这些协议能否确保OpenAI坚守非营利使命仍是未知数。“埃隆·马斯克应需证明……OpenAI与总检察长达成的协议存在哪些缺陷，”加州大学洛杉矶分校法学院慈善与非营利项目主任罗丝·陈·洛伊表示。即便协议条款到位，能否约束OpenAI取决于“他们能多大程度执行协议，以及能获取OpenAI工作多少透明度。”
更重要的是，法律专家认为该案适用的法律框架有误。马斯克主张奥特曼和布罗克曼通过创建封闭源代码的营利性子公司，违背了OpenAI的慈善信托。因此，法院一直依据信托法分析此诉求。“但OpenAI并非信托机构，而是公司。因此实际应当考虑……慈善非营利组织相关法律，”陈·洛伊补充道。

此事利害关系几何？
尽管法律层面充满争议，审判结果仍可能颠覆AI竞争格局。马斯克寻求的任何一项补救措施都可能削弱OpenAI，使其难以按计划于年底前上市。估值超过8500亿美元的OpenAI已将与马斯克的诉讼列为潜在商业风险。而马斯克旗下开发聊天机器人Grok的竞争企业xAI，预计最早于6月作为其火箭公司SpaceX的一部分上市。若马斯克胜诉，与SpaceX合计估值达1.25万亿美元的xAI将在AI竞赛中获得巨大优势。
此次审判还揭示了马斯克与其曾参与创立的公司之间的深刻裂痕。OpenAI发言人向《麻省理工科技评论》引用了X平台上一则帖子：“这起诉讼始终是出于嫉妒且毫无根据的企图，意在阻碍竞争对手。”尽管马斯克律师未立即回应置评请求，他已在X平台发帖称：“骗子奥特曼撒谎就像呼吸一样自然。”
《麻省理工科技评论》将持续追踪“马斯克诉奥特曼案”直至终审。请关注@techreview或@michelletomkim（X平台），或@michelletomkim（Bluesky平台）获取实时报道。

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英文来源：

Elon Musk and Sam Altman are going to court over OpenAI’s future
Elon Musk says he’s suing to save the company’s mission. The case could have huge consequences for OpenAI and the AI race.
After a yearslong legal feud, Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are heading to trial this week in Northern California in a case that could have sweeping consequences. Ahead of OpenAI’s highly anticipated IPO, the court could rule on whether the company is allowed to exist as a for-profit enterprise and might even oust its current executive leadership, including Altman.
Musk is suing OpenAI, alleging that Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman deceived him into bankrolling the company in its early days by promising to maintain it as a nonprofit dedicated to developing AI that benefits humanity, only to later restructure the company to operate a for-profit subsidiary. Musk cofounded OpenAI with Altman and others in 2015, but he left in 2018 after a bitter power struggle.
Musk is seeking as much as $134 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, one of OpenAI’s biggest financial backers. He is also asking the court to remove Altman and Brockman from their roles and to restore OpenAI as a nonprofit. Musk has asked the court to award any damages to OpenAI’s nonprofit rather than to him personally.
Nine jurors will deliver an advisory verdict, a non-binding recommendation, to guide the judge in deciding Musk’s claims against Altman. Musk, Altman, and Brockman will take the stand. Former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella are also expected to testify. Cringey texts, raw diary entries, and endless scheming behind the founding and growth of OpenAI are expected to come to light.
In an industry enveloped in secrecy, the trial will be a rare opportunity for the public to look behind the curtain and find out what’s going on in the companies creating the most transformative technology ever built.
What are they fighting about?
When OpenAI was originally founded as a nonprofit, backed by a $38 million donation from Musk, the company vowed to create open-source technology for the public’s benefit, unconstrained by a need to generate financial returns. But over the years, the company began to believe that intensifying competition could make it dangerous to share how it develops its AI models and that a nonprofit structure could not raise enough money to keep building AI. (MIT Technology Review was first to report on OpenAI’s internal conflicts around its mission.)
The court has already found that in 2017 Altman and Brockman wanted to establish a for-profit arm, while Musk proposed merging OpenAI with his electric-car company, Tesla. When Musk threatened to stop funding, Altman and Brockman told him that they were committed to keeping the company a nonprofit. Musk alleges that they pursued plans to pivot to a for-profit without sufficiently informing him. According to OpenAI, Musk agreed that the company needed a for-profit entity and even wanted to be its CEO.
But even if Musk proves he was duped by Altman and Brockman, he may not have standing in the first place to sue them for restructuring the company to operate a for-profit subsidiary. Some legal scholars are puzzled over why the judge allowed him to bring this claim. “The idea that Elon Musk can sue because he was a donor or used to be on the board is pretty puzzling,” says Jill Horwitz, a law professor who studies nonprofit law at Northwestern University. “Typically, it’s up to the attorneys general to bring such a claim to enforce the charitable purposes. And that’s already happened.”
In October 2025, state attorneys general of California, where OpenAI is headquartered, and Delaware, where OpenAI is incorporated, struck a deal with OpenAI to approve its new corporate structure on a series of conditions. For example, a safety and security committee at the nonprofit would review safety-related decisions made by the for-profit subsidiary. Critics of the restructuring, including Musk, AI safety advocates, and civil society groups, have tried to stop it.
California’s attorney general has declined to join Musk’s lawsuit, saying that the office did not see how his action serves the public interest.
Still, whether the deals hold OpenAI to its nonprofit mission is an open question. “Elon Musk should have to show … what the deficiencies are in what’s been agreed to by OpenAI with the attorneys general,” says Rose Chan Loui, the director of the UCLA School of Law’s philanthropy and nonprofit program. Even with the terms in place, holding OpenAI to them depends on “how much they can enforce it and how much transparency they get into OpenAI’s work.”
More importantly, legal experts say the case is being considered under the wrong body of law. Musk argues that Altman and Brockman breached OpenAI’s charitable trust by creating a closed-source, for-profit subsidiary. As a result, the court has been analyzing the claim under the law of trusts. “But OpenAI is not a trust. OpenAI is a corporation. And so really they should be looking at … the law of charitable nonprofit organizations,” says Chan Loui.
What's on the line?
Despite all the legal muddiness, the outcome of the trial could upend the AI race. Any one of the remedies that Musk seeks could cripple OpenAI as it races to go public by the end of the year. OpenAI, which is valued at over $850 billion, has described the litigation with Musk as a potential risk to its business. Musk’s rival company xAI, which makes the chatbot Grok, is expected to go public as a part of his rocket company SpaceX as early as June. If Musk prevails, xAI, which in combination with SpaceX is valued at $1.25 trillion, could get a big advantage in the AI race.
And the trial has helped expose the bitter schism between Musk and the company he once helped to found. An OpenAI spokesperson referred MIT Technology Review to a post on X: “This lawsuit has always been a baseless and jealous bid to derail a competitor.” Although Musk’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment, he has posted on X that “Scam Altman lies as easily as he breathes.”
MIT Technology Review will have ongoing coverage of Musk v. Altman until its conclusion. Follow @techreview or @michelletomkim on X or @michelletomkim on Bluesky for up-to-the-minute reporting.
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