Elon Musk

During a second day on the stand, Musk cast himself as indispensable to the launch of OpenAI, but called himself a fool for contributing so much to the company, which was founded as a charity, but later added a for-profit arm.

Musk contends that the for-profit entity has, quote, become the main thing, and the nonprofit's mission of creating AI for the benefit of humanity has been cast aside by OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, and its president, Greg Brockman.

Musk helped found the company and put in $38 million to

but he left in 2018 after a dispute over who would run the for-profit.

He's seeking a rollback of the for-profit entity and the ouster of Altman and Brockman, changes that could reshape one of the most important AI companies in the world.

John Rewich, NPR News, Oakland, California.

The case hinges on whether OpenAI's founding mission of creating AI as a nonprofit for the benefit of humanity has been lost.

Musk helped found the company a decade ago, but he left in 2018 amid disagreements with Altman and others about who would run a for-profit arm of the company that would be set up to raise money.

Musk testified about his role early on.

He says he recruited a key AI researcher and used his contacts at Microsoft and Nvidia to get access to computing power.

And he says he wasn't opposed to setting up a for-profit entity, but he wanted control of it.

In an opening statement, OpenAI's lead lawyer said the other founders were not okay with one person having control.

Musk left, launched a competitor, XAI, and then sued.

The trial is set to run for several more weeks.

John Rewich, NPR News, Oakland, California.

Musk, Altman, and a handful of others co-founded OpenAI almost a decade ago as a nonprofit organization.

They were worried about human-level artificial intelligence being in the hands of for-profit companies, so the idea was to develop advanced AI to benefit humanity.

But soon they launched a for-profit arm of OpenAI in order to raise enough money to meet their goals.

Analysts say there was a power struggle over who would control that entity, with Musk on the losing end.

In the lawsuit, Musk contends that the for-profit business has taken over and the non-profit mission has been sidelined.