Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella testifies in OpenAI trial

BREAKING NEWSmay. 11, 2026, 5:30 PM UTCArtificial intelligenceArtificial intelligenceA third billionaire testifies in OpenAI trial: Microsoft CEO Satya NadellaMicrosoft is a co-defendant in the case through its partnership with OpenAI.Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.Justin Sullivan / Getty Images fileShareAdd NBC News to GoogleBy David IngramOAKLAND, Calif. — Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella took the witness stand Monday in a trial about control of the artificial intelligence startup OpenAI, making him the third tech billionaire to testify in the closely watched lawsuit in as many weeks.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.Nadella’s testimony follows earlier appearances by Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and a co-founder of OpenAI, and Greg Brockman, the president and co-founder of OpenAI. A fourth billionaire, OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman, is scheduled to testify later in the week.The lawsuit centers around Musk’s claims that OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, has strayed from its original mission as a nonprofit research center. Musk alleges that Altman and Brockman are enriching themselves at the expense of what he says was supposed to remain a charity.Altman and Brockman say that OpenAI is still controlled by a nonprofit foundation, despite having a for-profit arm with outside investors. They say Musk is now harassing them as competitors via the suit after he started his own AI company, xAI, now part of SpaceX. They also say Musk agreed with them about the need to start a for-profit arm but wanted to be the one to control it.Microsoft is a co-defendant in the case through its partnership with OpenAI. Musk alleges that Microsoft was a bad influence on Altman and Brockman, encouraging them to violate their duty to OpenAI’s nonprofit mission by signing lucrative deals in which OpenAI obtained cloud computing services.In response, Microsoft has said i...