The case caption alone will likely elicit a reaction from the roughly 100 potential jurors summoned to an Oakland federal courtroom Monday.
The trial of Elon Musk v. Samuel Altman is beginning. And the personal feelings of jurors will pose a special challenge in the multi-billion dollar trial over Musk’s claims that Altman betrayed OpenAI’s founding principles, as it features two household names that each come with significant baggage.
The American public’s broad antipathy toward the AI industry looms over the trial, as well.
Weeks ago, a man was arrested for allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail at Altman’s San Francisco home, and polls have shown Americans hold negative views toward AI. Last month, Musk alleged a San Francisco jury showed bias against him.
In any other trial, a potential juror who knows the case well or has a bias toward one of the parties would be booted. That’s impossible in a case with such big names.
The question instead is whether a juror can credibly put aside their beliefs and listen only to the facts presented at trial.
Musk says that Altman promised to keep OpenAI a nonprofit when Musk made a $38 million donation to start the company together in 2015. Altman and OpenAI have denied those claims and have alleged Musk is using the legal proceedings to attack a competitor and bolster his own AI company, xAI.
“They’re both so unsympathetic,” said Laurie Kuslansky, a longtime jury expert and trial consultant. “There’s no heroes here.”
‘Equally Disliked’
A case pitting two powerful and wealthy figures against each other poses another odd dynamic: neither party can credibly lay claim to a sympathetic, underdog narrative.
It’s possible that “they’re all equally liked or they’re all equally disliked,”
“The Venn diagram between people who have strong feelings about Elon Musk and strong feelings about Sam Altman probably overlaps quite a lot,” said Adam Shlahet, a trial advocacy professor at Fordham Law School.
Musk, the world’s richest person, brings with him all the baggage of his political ties to President Donald Trump and the American right. Altman has also faced growing criticism, especially after signing an agreement to work with the Department of Defense and recent news reports of his alleged misrepresentations to OpenAI board members.
After Musk lost a Twitter investor class action trial last month in San Francisco, Musk’s legal team argued that the jury showed an overt bias toward him when they appeared to make a joke in the verdict form. Lawyers pointed to the jury’s decision to use blue ink for the number $4.20 while writing other numbers in black ink.
Judge Charles R. Breyer, who ran that trial, during jury selection compared Musk’s celebrity status to that of a president, and said it would be impossible to impanel a jury that had no feelings about him.
“As a public figure he will excite strong views, and for him in particular, people have strong views,” Breyer said.
Courts have a high bar for moving a trial to an entirely new jurisdiction over concerns about a biased jury pool. And that can come with its own complications if a new pool is entirely uninformed about the trial issues.
In this case, Musk may have a slight advantage in selling a more compelling story: that OpenAI was always supposed to be a nonprofit. “You have a very simple story that’s very appealing,” Kuslansky said. “Even if the messenger isn’t, the message is.”
Unlike Musk, who has testified numerous times in state and federal courts, often successfully, Altman will be making his first-ever appearance on a witness stand in a trial.
The jury will be tasked with wading through early emails and messages between the co-founders to determine liability. But their verdict ultimately will not be binding. It will help inform a final decision made by Gonzalez Rogers.
Juror Questionnaires
Gonzalez Rogers, a veteran of high-profile Silicon Valley legal battles, sent written questionnaires to potential jurors to help filter out those with the strongest views, either positive or negative, about Musk and Altman. The jury pool will include residents from seven counties that surround the entire San Francisco Bay, including parts of Silicon Valley.
A final copy of the questionnaire sent to jurors wasn’t available on the court’s public docket, and attorneys for both parties didn’t respond to inquires about it.
She’ll use the questionnaire responses to more closely probe potential jurors’ beliefs. The attorneys for Musk and Altman will also have an opportunity to question them.
During that process, known as voir dire, attorneys are focused not on impaneling a fair jury but instead trying to eliminate jurors that will lose them the case, Kuslansky said.
Attorneys can argue an unlimited number of “cause challenges” to strike overtly biased jurors. The judge has given each side only four peremptory challenges that allow them to eliminate jurors without a specified reason.
The strategy will be to “get as many of them out as you can for cause and then try not to reveal the few people that might be okay for you,” Kuslansky said.
The attorneys will also focus on ferreting out “stealth jurors” who may be trying to get on the panel with a particular agenda. Both legal teams are allowed to conduct internet and social media research on the jurors to help identify those inclinations.
Despite all the theatrics and narratives, once the trial actually begins, “the evidence in the case takes over,” said Ellen Leggett, a jury consultant for Leggett Jury Research LLC.
“At the very beginning of the trial, the jurors are more focused on the personalities, they’re getting to know the lawyers,” Leggett said. “Once the facts of the case become engrossing, those take over and the issues start driving their decision making.”
The case is Musk v. Altman, N.D. Cal., No. 4:24-cv-04722, jury selection 4/27/26.
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