Featured Image Credit: 20th Century Fox
When you tend to think of clowns, Ronald McDonald, Pennywise from It, and Krusty the Clown will all likely come to mind. You hopefully weren't thinking of John Wayne Gacy's Pogo the Clown, but we bet that none of you would put Elon Musk's lawyers in your rundown of the world's 10 most famous clowns.
It turns out that the world's richest man might have a thing for baggy trousers and red noses because one of his top lawyers in the ongoing OpenAI lawsuit also moonlights as a clown.
While they once seemed like best buds who worked on creating OpenAI together, Elon Musk and Sam Altman are now at each other's throats.
When not joking about buying each other's companies or complaining that their Tesla Roadster order has never arrived, they're exchanging legal barbs.
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Musk is suing Altman amid claims that he's broken OpenAI's initial mission statement to 'save' humanity, and although he initially dropped the case in mid-2024, it's been reignited by OpenAI countersuing. This has led to accusations that Musk is guilty of data misuse, and Musk then suing Apple and OpenAI over claims of market favorability.
It's a lot of he-said, he-said, meaning both sides will want to make sure they've got the best in the business. However, an investigation from Business Insider jokes about Musk's team ‘clowning’ around, with one of his layers supposedly having a second job as an entertainer and his own 'Clown Cardio' business.
There's no denying the skills of Jaymie Parkkinen, who, in a July 2025 hearing, singlehandedly faced three lawyers representing OpenAI and Microsoft.
'Juggling' litigation and clown cardio, Parkkinen told the outlet: "All of my comedy friends — none of them can believe I'm a lawyer. And none of my lawyer friends can believe I do clown."
Still, Parkkinen defends his hobby and reiterates that his version of clown is more akin to the comedy of Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton rather than curly wigs at parties for kids.
Referring to it as a more traditional take on the clown, Parkkinen continued: "When you strip away all the social masks that we all wear, if you strip away gender and politics and money and status and power, and you're just your raw human self without all of the trappings of society — who are you? And clown tries to answer that question."
Working for Toberoff & Associates due to an interest in intellectual property law, Parkkinen inadvertently found himself on the docket for Mr. Musk.
He has already subpoenaed Mira Murati, a former OpenAI executive who briefly served as OpenAI CEO and now leads Thinking Machine Labs.
This means that clowning has taken something of a backseat, with Parkkinen reiterating that he's been focused on the Musk case – although he wouldn't share any specific details on interactions with the billionaire.
With grand plans to open his own legal firm looking at "the intersection of IP and AI," he thinks that his clown life and law life aren't so different: "At the end of the day, it's just about connecting with people, and so is being a lawyer.
"You're connecting with a judge, a jury, opposing counsel."
As for the sometimes stuffy association of lawyers, he concluded: "Lawyers are often very conservative and kind of miss out on this huge gift that's right at their fingertips. Just take an improv class."
