The craziest part of Musk v. Altman happened while the jury was out of the room

Well, I’m not a lawyer so I only understood half of what just happened. But I’m pretty sure, based on what happened, Elon Musk’s lawyers may have just been sarcastic.

Jared”James Brickhouse“Birchall, Musk’s financial man and general manager, stood behind Musk today.” Most of his evidence was not very clear and appeared to be there for some notes to be read into the register, which is unpleasant but a normal part of having trials. very much At the end of his boring testimony something interesting happened. I’m sure we were all surprised, which rarely happens in courtrooms.

The lawyer who was directly testing him was presented by another member of the group, and he asked Birchall what appeared to be on the note: was he familiar with xAI’s investment in OpenAI?

“As I recall, a lawyer we were working with asked the California attorney general to make sure that in their legal capacity, the money given to OpenAI is not for profit,” Birchall said. In his understanding, there was a conversation “between Sam Altman and himself on both sides of the table, for-profit and non-profit, trying to get rid of the value of the non-profit.”

Here are some: in February 2025, The Musk-led consortium raised $97.4 billion in funding for the nonprofit that oversees OpenAI.. The requests were made by Marc Toberoff, one of Musk’s lawyers in the current case. This happened when OpenAI organized itself so that the profit-making arm was removed from public view. In Birchall’s testimony, the request was made because Musk, Birchall, and others, thought Altman could ignore the nonprofit while the company restructured itself. (I don’t really know why that would be a problem for Musk and xAI, honestly, but whatever.)

The attorney objected, and Birchall’s statement was struck out for lack of foundation. So we did this bit by bit to set the stage, and ended with Birchall saying, “Sam Altman was on both sides of the table.”

When questioned, Bradley Wilson of Wachtell Lipton – OpenAI’s lawyers – picked up on the thread. Wilson asked how much Birchall had learned from sources other than lawyers. Birchall said it will be difficult for him to overcome this. After a brief exchange, Wilson moved to introduce all of Birchall’s testimony about xAI on the grounds that it was not discussed before the jury.

The jury had to leave early when the lawyers brought it out, and this is where it got weird. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers began questioning Birchall herself, much to Birchall’s dismay. Birchall said he doesn’t recall discussing xAI with Musk or Sharon Zilis or any other executive in Musk’s organization. It felt like Musk’s lawyers didn’t give OpenAI the proper insight into the topic, so we were acting fast and dirty. he is a judge right there. At one point, Gonzalez Rogers told the judge to stop teaching the evidence.

Birchall said he spoke to other members of the consortium about the bid, but was not involved in discussions with Musk about when to send the bid letter. He said he had heard some things from Toberoff, but he didn’t know Toberoff represented other candidates. He didn’t know if xAI knew that Toberoff represented other candidates, either.

Birchall didn’t know if other investors had firsthand knowledge of OpenAI, he said. No one had documents from within OpenAI as far as he knew. Gonzalez Rogers couldn’t believe it. “I’m still struggling with how you talk to these people to get $97.5 billion but I don’t remember a single bit of it,” he said. Birchall said he had a lot of wisdom – he called each of the people involved to see if they wanted to join Musk in the venture.

“Why would he do that?” Gonzales Rogers asked. Birchall said these were people with whom Musk et al had a long-standing relationship. He said: “You must be determined. You are not convinced today.”

Birchall said no numbers other than the above were floated when he called potential investors, and that when he spoke to him, they were given to lawyers. He didn’t remember who picked the $97.4 billion number, and said he got it from the legal team, telling Gonzalez Rogers he didn’t get it from Musk. Gonzalez Rogers asked if this analysis was done by anyone other than Toberoff. Birchall said he could not remember.

“Did the lawyer tell you that this is part of the criminal case?” Gonzalez Rogers asked.

No, said Birchall. It was really just a commercial.

It seems that Steven Molo, who is protecting Musk at this time, has denied it several times in the questions about the agreement, based on the connection of chance. Businesses, apparently, are out of luck. But everything found in OpenAI’s xAI bid was blocked before the trial began. Unfortunately, by asking Birchall about the xAI collaboration at the very end of the direct test, Musk’s team may have opened the door to more digging. You may be thinking, “open the door for what” and your thoughts are as good as mine. Another discovery? Maybe something about anticompetitive behavior from Musk? It doesn’t sound like it’s going to be good for Musk, I’ll tell you that much.

Gonzalez Rogers then asked who issued the document, and all the lawyers acted like guilty children. Finally, the man in charge said he won it, but he didn’t write it down; junior lawyer said. Who wrote it? To be quiet. Finally, Toberoff – who was not the attorney general – stood up and took over. Why did he do this? I thought it was worth it.

“It sounds like you want to open the door,” Gonzalez Rogers said. We stopped when he said he would consider what to do with the evidence. He will probably rule on it tomorrow.