Business

Elon Musk threatens to make Sam Altman to most hated man in America

By Hillary Remy TheStreet

Updated May 5, 2026 10:25 AM

Two days before his lawsuit against OpenAI was set to go to trial, Elon Musk picked up his phone and sent a message to Greg Brockman. What he wrote is now part of the court record.

And it changes the character of this dispute in ways the legal arguments alone never could.

What Musk said to Brockman before trial

Musk contacted Brockman to ask whether he was open to a settlement, according to a court filing cited by Yahoo Finance. Brockman responded by suggesting both sides drop their claims against each other.

Musk's reply was not measured. "By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America. If you insist, so be it," he wrote, the court filing confirmed.

More Elon Musk:

That sentence, now entered into the official record, is what OpenAI's legal team has been waiting for. Attorneys for Brockman, Altman, and OpenAI argue the message "tends to prove motive and bias, and, in particular, that Mr. Musk's motivation in pursuing this lawsuit is to attack a competitor and its principals," according to the court filing.

Why the timing matters

The text was sent two days before jury selection began last week. This is now the second week of proceedings in the Northern District of California, with the trial expected to run through mid-May, according to Yahoo Finance.

Sending a threat-adjacent message to the opposing party's co-founder days before trial is not the behavior of someone primarily focused on legal strategy. It is the behavior of someone deeply invested in the outcome on a personal level. That is precisely how OpenAI's lawyers intend the jury to read it.

Musk took the stand last week and clashed repeatedly with OpenAI's attorney, Yahoo Finance noted. The courtroom exchanges, combined with the pretrial text, are building a portrait of a plaintiff whose motives are harder to read as purely principled.

What Musk's lawsuit is actually about

Musk claims he contributed more than $44 million in cash to OpenAI in its first five critical years, with the understanding that it would remain a nonprofit dedicated to developing AI for the benefit of humanity, according to the First Amended Complaint. He contends that Altman and Brockman misled him when they moved the company toward a for-profit structure.

OpenAI officially transitioned to a public benefit corporation in October 2025, according to Yahoo Finance. Microsoft received a 27% stake in the new entity, while OpenAI's nonprofit arm, the OpenAI Foundation, received a stake valued at $130 billion. OpenAI's most recent fundraising round valued the company at $852 billion, according to OpenAI.

OpenAI's counter-narrative is that Musk wanted to merge the company with Tesla and take over as CEO. When OpenAI's leadership refused, Musk walked away and later founded xAI in 2023 as a direct competitor. SpaceX subsequently acquired xAI ahead of its IPO, Yahoo Finance noted. OpenAI's position is that the lawsuit is an effort to derail a competitor, not to vindicate a principle.

What the message reveals about how this dispute has evolved

What began as a governance argument over nonprofit mission drift has become something far more combustible. A legal case centered on founding documents and board decisions now has a text message at its center that frames the conflict in terms of personal destruction rather than institutional accountability.

The Brockman text is not the kind of message a lawyer would recommend sending. It is openly confrontational, timed for maximum pressure, and framed in terms of public humiliation rather than legal resolution. Whether or not it meets any formal evidentiary threshold, it tells the jury something important about tone.

OpenAI's legal team will argue the message reflects the entire character of the lawsuit. Musk's team will argue it was negotiating language taken out of context. The jury will have to decide which reading fits what it knows about how this dispute began and how it has been conducted since.

Key facts from the Musk-OpenAI trial:

Musk's exact pretrial message to Brockman: "By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America. If you insist, so be it," according to the court filing
Musk's OpenAI contributions: more than $44 million in cash in OpenAI's first five years, according to the First Amended Complaint
OpenAI's transition to a public benefit corporation: completed October 2025, according to Yahoo Finance
Microsoft's stake in OpenAI's PBC: 27%, Yahoo Finance noted
OpenAI Foundation stake value: $130 billion, Yahoo Finance reported
OpenAI's most recent valuation: $852 billion, according to OpenAI
Trial timeline: jury selection began the previous week, proceedings expected to run through mid-May, Yahoo Finance confirmed

What happens from here

The trial is expected to continue through mid-May. With Musk having already taken the stand and the pretrial text now in the record, both sides are locked into narratives that will be difficult to walk back.

For Musk, the challenge is persuading the jury that the lawsuit is about betrayal of a founding mission, not competitive revenge. The Brockman text makes that harder. For OpenAI, the challenge is showing that its structural transformation was a legitimate evolution rather than the abandonment of a commitment it made to attract a $45 million donor.

Neither side has a clean story. What this trial is proving, above everything else, is that the relationship between Musk and OpenAI's leadership deteriorated far beyond what any legal filing could fully capture. The "most hated men in America" line will be cited long after the verdict, whatever it is.

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This story was originally published May 5, 2026 at 10:07 AM.