Elon Musk's World War 3 threat comes back to bite him in OpenAI trial

Although we wouldn't quite call it the trial of the century, that doesn't detract from the massive media interest in the Elon Musk versus Sam Altman trial.

It's the battle of the billionaires, with the two tech overlords duking it out over OpenAI's not-for-profit mission statement from when Musk and Atlman co-founded it back in 2015.

While Musk and Altman were among OpenAI’s 11 co-founders, their relationship soon faced strain when the former stepped away in 2018. It was here that Elon Musk realized Tesla was making a move into the AI space as a potential conflict of interest, also adding that he thought "OpenAI is on a path of certain failure."

This was nowhere near the end of the saga, with Musk now taking Altman, OpenAI, and Microsoft to court amid allegations that they betrayed the company’s founding mission and made millions off his back as he was 'duped' into early funding.

Alongside branding his rival as 'Scam Altman', Musk's favorite quip is that the OpenAI CEO is 'stealing a charity' as he seeks up to $150 billion in damages. This comes off OpenAI's $852 billion valuation at the start of April, with Musk claiming any winnings will be donated to the company's charitable arm.

As with anything Musk, the courtroom battle has already turned into a veritable picnic of soundbites and anecdotes as diary entries and private messages are spilled out, although the world's richest man's past is in danger of derailing his claim.

Ars Technica reported that resurfaced messages from Musk's acquisition of Twitter are being used against him. At the crux of the argument is a court filing where OpenAI president Greg Brockman claims that Musk messaged him just days before the trial.

It's said that the message was to "gauge interest” in a potential settlement, although Brockman suggested that both drop their claims. Musk supposedly got aggravated with Brockman's reply and responded: "By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America...If you insist, so it will be."

The outlet notes that discussions of proposed settlements aren't admissible, but that didn't help Musk in a 2022 Twitter case.

His lawyers asked for a renegotiation of the eventual $44 billion purchase price "so that the lawsuit could be dropped," with Musk notably threatening "it would be World War III until the end of time for real" for Twitter's bosses and their 'heirs'.

At the same time, Musk reportedly tried to get to Twitter execs by telling them that if he "ends up owning this thing, he’ll have access to all of the company’s records and he could look at everyone’s emails and dig into whatever he wanted to dig into."

That exchange became admissible because Musk's lawyers planned to reveal it to the opposing counsel, but jump forward to 2026, and OpenAI suggested that the Brockman messages also shouldn't be seen as privileged or as an actual effort to settle because they're "coercive rather than conciliatory."

Using the WWIII threat as something of a trump card, OpenAI maintains that the messages sent to Brockman match "similar menacing statements" he's made throughout the litigation. Its legal team argued that Musk has a personal vendetta against Altman and has launched a harassment campaign against others.

As well as saying the messages should be admitted because it "tends to prove motive and bias," Musk's legal opposition concluded that his "motivation in pursuing this lawsuit is to attack a competitor and its principals."

Ultimately, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has declined to admit the "World War III" messages because they were not introduced during Musk’s actual testimony. We'd call that a close shave.