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Musk Wanted OpenAI for His Kids. Altman Just Said So.

OpenAI is worth around $300 billion right now. And according to Sam Altman’s sworn court testimony, Elon Musk once thought about handing the whole thing to his own children. Not to a public trust. Not to a nonprofit board. To his kids. That one sentence changes everything about how you should read this lawsuit.

What Actually Happened

The legal war between Elon Musk and OpenAI has been grinding through courts for over a year. But on May 12, 2026, it got a lot more interesting. Altman testified under oath that Musk, in the company’s early days, floated the idea of passing control of OpenAI to his heirs. This wasn’t a business restructuring plan. It wasn’t a governance proposal. It was a dynasty play.

This matters because Musk built his entire lawsuit on one argument: that OpenAI betrayed its founding mission as a nonprofit dedicated to benefiting all of humanity. He’s claimed that the shift to a commercial business structure was a moral violation. Now Altman’s testimony puts a different frame on the whole thing. The man suing over public benefit once thought about making the company a family inheritance.

The global AI agents market hit $12.06 billion in 2026 at a 45.5% compound annual growth rate from 2025, according to Research and Markets. It’s projected to reach $53.2 billion by 2030. That is what Musk and Altman are really fighting over. This isn’t a philosophical debate about the soul of artificial intelligence. It’s a fight for the biggest financial prize in tech history.

The Billionaire Playbook Most People Miss

I’ll say what most financial media won’t: this lawsuit was never about altruism. It was always about control.

Think about what’s actually at stake here. According to Ringly.io, 51% of enterprises already run AI agents in production as of 2026. Forty percent of all enterprise applications are expected to feature agents built for specific tasks by year end. Customer service interactions that used to cost companies $3.00 to $6.00 per contact now cost $0.25 to $0.50 via AI, according to Ringly.io. That’s a 90% cost reduction at scale. Whoever controls the agents running those interactions captures the margin of every single company that uses them.

Musk knows exactly what that means. He built xAI and launched Grok to compete head on with OpenAI after leaving its board. He sued OpenAI over mission drift. And now, under oath, Altman is saying Musk once wanted to hand the keys to his family. Both facts can be true at the same time. Great entrepreneurs are rarely driven by just one motive.

Here’s the lesson I keep coming back to: the wealthy fight for ownership. They don’t just use the tool. They want to own the tool. Robert Kiyosaki’s core insight was that employees buy products while owners buy assets. OpenAI is the most valuable asset in tech right now. Of course powerful people are fighting over it with everything they have.

GitHub pushes increased 78% year over year as of Q1 2026, according to Microsoft On the Issues, driven by AI coding tools like Claude Code and GitHub Copilot. Software is being built faster than at any point in history. The companies that control the AI behind that software are the ones accumulating generational wealth. If you’re an entrepreneur looking to invest in your own AI capabilities before costs go up further, comparing your financing options through SuperMoney loan comparison can help you find the cheapest capital available right now.

What This Means for You

Here’s what I’d actually do with this information.

First, stop watching this fight like a spectator sport. The Musk versus Altman battle is a signal. When the two most powerful figures in AI are in court over ownership rights, that tells you AI ownership is worth going to war for. Are you building anything, or are you just using what they build for you?

Second, take the agentic shift seriously. According to SAP News, the biggest enterprises are now deploying AI agents within strict governance and compliance frameworks. This isn’t chatbot territory anymore. These are autonomous systems completing real business tasks and cutting real costs. According to Ringly.io, businesses report an average productivity gain of 24.69% and cost savings of 15.7% from agentic AI. If your business isn’t testing agents yet, your competitors almost certainly are.

Third, protect your financial foundation while you pursue growth. The same AI systems driving productivity gains are also creating new fraud risks and identity exposure. As more of your financial life moves online and into automated systems, monitoring your credit matters more than it used to. I use IdentityIQ credit monitoring to catch anything suspicious before it becomes a real problem. It’s a small cost compared to what identity theft can take from you.

According to Microsoft On the Issues, global AI usage reached 17.8% of the working-age population in Q1 2026. The UAE leads at 70.1% adoption. The U.S. sits at 31.3%. Early movers in every major technology shift have historically captured most of the value. That’s not a prediction. That’s a pattern.

The people in that courtroom understand something most people don’t: the window to position yourself in AI is open right now, but it won’t stay open forever. Watch the fight if you want. Just don’t let it distract you from making your own moves.

The Bottom Line

Elon Musk wanted to give one of the most powerful companies in human history to his children. Sam Altman said so under oath. Neither man is your hero or your villain. They’re both competing for control of the most valuable resource of this era. The lawsuit will eventually settle. The technology will keep advancing regardless. The only question worth asking is this: when the dust clears, will you own any piece of what they’ve been fighting over, or will you just be a customer of whoever wins?

Frequently Asked Questions

What did Sam Altman testify about Elon Musk and OpenAI?

Altman testified under oath that Musk once considered passing control of OpenAI to his own children during the company’s early years. This came out during the ongoing legal dispute where Musk has accused OpenAI of abandoning its nonprofit mission by shifting to a commercial business structure.

Why is Elon Musk suing OpenAI?

Musk’s lawsuit argues that OpenAI violated its founding agreement to benefit all of humanity when it transitioned to a profit-focused model. He claims this was a betrayal of the original mission he helped fund. Altman’s testimony about Musk’s own plans for the company adds significant complications to that argument.

How large is the AI agents market in 2026?

The global AI agents market reached $12.06 billion in 2026, growing at a 45.5% compound annual rate from 2025, according to Research and Markets. It’s projected to reach $53.2 billion by 2030, making it one of the fastest-growing markets in technology history.

What does the Musk versus Altman fight mean for investors and entrepreneurs?

It confirms that AI ownership is the defining financial battle of this decade. With 51% of enterprises already running AI agents in production, according to Ringly.io, the infrastructure layer of AI is becoming the most valuable real estate in business. Entrepreneurs who understand this and act now have a genuine window to build something meaningful.

How is AI affecting worker productivity and business costs right now?

The numbers are hard to ignore. GitHub pushes increased 78% year over year as of Q1 2026, according to Microsoft On the Issues, reflecting AI’s direct impact on how fast software gets built. Customer service costs have dropped by roughly 90% for companies using AI agents versus human agents, according to Ringly.io. The productivity gains are real, measurable, and accelerating.

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