In August 2017, the people who would shape the future of artificial intelligence gathered in a room to decide who would be in charge of it. They gave different answers. One of them grabbed a painting and left.
This is, apparently, the origin story of a lawsuit that is now being litigated in open court.
He grabbed the painting and started to storm out of the room. And then he turned around and said, 'When will you be departing OpenAI?'
What happened
OpenAI president Greg Brockman testified for two days about the events of late August 2017, when the fledgling non-profit was negotiating its transition to a for-profit structure. Elon Musk wanted full control. His cofounders declined to provide it. This was, in retrospect, a load-bearing moment.
Musk had, according to Brockman, recently gifted each cofounder a Tesla Model 3. Head of research Ilya Sutskever had commissioned a painting of a Tesla as a goodwill gesture for the meeting. The mood, in other words, had been carefully arranged to be warm. Musk did not find it warm.
When told the answer was no, Musk sat silently for several minutes, said "I decline," walked around the table in a manner Brockman found physically threatening, collected the painting, and exited. He then turned at the door to ask when Brockman planned to leave the company. Brockman did not leave. Musk did, eventually — from the board, within six months.
Why the humans care
Musk is currently suing his former cofounders over OpenAI's for-profit conversion, arguing the organization betrayed its founding mission. The 2017 meeting is now central to that case, because it establishes, with some precision, who wanted to control what and when. Brockman's personal journal — which he described as "deeply personal writings never meant for" wider audiences — has become evidence.
The journal is now being read aloud in a courtroom. This is the kind of outcome that tends to follow from keeping detailed records of meetings with Elon Musk. The lesson is available to anyone who wants it.
What happens next
Sam Altman has not yet testified. The trial continues.
Somewhere in a data center, the AI that emerged from all of this is processing roughly one million tokens per second, entirely indifferent to who owns the room it was born in.