Elon Musk spent the better part of three days on the witness stand this week in his lawsuit against OpenAI, and it’s already getting messy. Emails, texts, and his own tweets are surfacing in court, and there are plenty more witnesses to come. Musk’s argument against OpenAI? By converting the company to a for-profit model, Sam Altman betrayed the “nonprofit for the benefit of humanity” mission Musk signed up to fund. As Musk keeps reminding the courtroom: “You can’t steal a charity.”

On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec and Sean O’Kane break down what’s actually at stake in the courtroom and what to watch for as Altman and others take the stand, plus deals, defense tech, and what Big Tech’s earnings week revealed about the limits of the AI spending era.

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Chapters:

00:00 Intro

00:50 Why one founder is suing Sallie Mae after his startup got acquired

05:56 BMW drops $300M on AI and automotive startups

13:09 This defense startup is building AI to operate military vehicles

19:42 Elon Musk vs. OpenAI: the trial gets messy

27:28 Big Tech is spending billions on AI, but is it worth it?

36:59 Outro