Musk Testifies for Seven Hours Across Three Days: 'I Was a Fool to Give Them $38 Million'

Elon Musk took the stand in Oakland federal court on 28 April 2026 and testified for more than seven hours over three sitting days. He stated under oath that he was 'a fool' for donating US$38 million to OpenAI when it was a nonprofit, money he said was used to create what is now an US$800 billion company. Musk repeated his warning that artificial intelligence 'could kill us all' and admitted xAI distils OpenAI's models. Cross-examination by OpenAI lead attorney William Savitt exposed inconsistencies between Musk's trial testimony and his earlier depositions, particularly regarding how carefully he had read the 2015 founding documents. Judge Gonzalez Rogers intervened repeatedly after Musk resisted yes-or-no questions. The testimony anchors Musk's core argument: that Altman and Brockman induced his initial funding by representing OpenAI as a charitable trust, then converted the trust to a for-profit corporation in violation of the founding agreement.