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Brockman Says Musk Threatened Violence, Funding, Offered Model 3

5/6/2026

24 3 Full Breakdown

Summary

Story summary

Greg Brockman testified in an Oakland federal court that he feared Elon Musk would physically strike him during a heated 2017 OpenAI board meeting.
He said Musk announced he would withhold OpenAI funding after the meeting unless the founders accepted his control terms.
August 2017 texts show Musk offered a Model 3 car to Ilya Sutskever and Brockman for the founders’ acceptance.

History

Historical Context

In November 2010, Demis Hassabis, Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman founded DeepMind in London. On 26 January 2014, Google, led by Sundar Pichai, bought DeepMind for a reported $400 million, concentrating advanced AI talent under one U.S. firm. Greg Brockman's 2017 testimony on Elon Musk’s OpenAI funding echoes those early worries, prompting calls for antitrust scrutiny of AI governance.

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Story summary

Greg Brockman testified in an Oakland federal court that he feared Elon Musk would physically strike him during a heated 2017 OpenAI board meeting.
He said Musk announced he would withhold OpenAI funding after the meeting unless the founders accepted his control terms.
August 2017 texts show Musk offered a Model 3 car to Ilya Sutskever and Brockman for the founders’ acceptance.

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