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Elizabeth Lopatto

Elizabeth Lopatto

Senior Reporter

Senior Reporter

    More From Elizabeth Lopatto

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    We finished with the Microsoft investment pretty quickly.

    It happened. Kind of a nothingburger, as Brockman said that the deal was “not really my focus area.” We are now back in his disclosures. OpenAI did a December 2025 deal with Cerebras, for $10 billion of chips — and Brockman had an investment. The deal increased Cerebras’ valuation to $23 billion. “Your equity in Cerebras became more valuable because of the transaction OpenAI did?” Brockman admits that’s possible.

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Altman didn’t return after we took our break.

    But Brockman is back on the stand, and boy, morning has not been good to him. We are now moving on to Microsoft.

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    We are presently having a fight about purple boxes.

    You may recall from Musk’s testimony that OpenAI has used purple boxes to highlight things. We see another purple box in OpenAI LLC’s announcement it exists. Molo asks if this is something OpenAI generally uses in its paperwork to highlight important things. Brockman says no. We go back and forth on this for a while, because Brockman thinks Molo’s statement is overly broad.

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    We have been doing the same question for perhaps the last five minutes.

    Brockman is worth $30 billion. Molo has been asking, over and over, why Brockman hasn’t donated the $29 billion to OpenAI’s charity since he’d be good at $1 billion. Brockman has been making weird non-answers. He sounds nervous and not especially convincing.

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    “Financially what will take me to $1B?”

    The famous Brockman quote has finally hit. Molo is arguing that rather than figuring out funding for the nonprofit, Brockman was plotting to get rich. Brockman is trying to say that there’s more context. While Molo is getting worked up, Brockman is pretty level. “Do we accept Elon’s terms, or do we reject the terms, he quits to create his own [AI company], and then we create our own [AI company]?” Molo tried to strike the answer, but he is overruled.

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    “His story will correctly be that we weren’t honest with him in the end about still wanting to do the for profit just without him.”

    Greg Brockman’s journal really is making Greg Brockman look unreliable. Six days after telling Musk that Brockman et al. wanted more results in the nonprofit and to fundraise there, he writes, “We’ve been thinking about that maybe we should just flip to a for-profit. making money for us sounds great and all.” Brockman says this was an expression of a frustration and not a plan. Molo asks if he rehearsed that. Brockman says “no.”

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Greg Brockman’s journal: “it’d be wrong to steal the non-profit from him.”

    He also writes, “To convert to a b-corp without him. That’d be pretty morally bankrupt.” That’s probably the most solid thing the Musk team has gotten out during the trial so far.

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Brockman is not doing himself any favors.

    Molo asks if the nonprofit should still be a philanthropic endeavor. Brockman says, forcefully, “no.” We then look at notes from his diary, where he records Musk as saying “gotta figure out how do we transition from non-profit or something which is essentially philanthropic endeavor and is b-corp or c-corp.” Does make Brockman look pretty shifty.

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Brockman’s cross-examination isn’t as testy as Musk’s, but he’s also pushing back on a lot of questions.

    We are hearing a lot of “I wouldn’t characterize it that way,” “I’m not sure I’d say it that way,” and “This sounds like something that I wrote, is it okay if we see it in context?” It’s not as contentious or tense as Musk’s exchanges with Savitt, but it’s definitely notable.

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Is sending stuff to Sam Teller and Shivon Zilis the same as sending it to Musk?

    The question is whether Brockman disclosed his ownership of Cerebras when OpenAI was discussing merging with it. Brockman told Teller and Zilis, who were in theory Musk’s chiefs of staff, but not Musk himself. Molo is driving this home, which… I am less convinced by. Lots of executives delegate.