{"id":50032,"date":"2026-05-05T20:01:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T20:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/openai-founder-recalls-drinking-whiskey-with-amber-heard-at-musks-haunted-mansion-then-a-fight-over-control\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T20:01:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T20:01:23","slug":"openai-founder-recalls-drinking-whiskey-with-amber-heard-at-musks-haunted-mansion-then-a-fight-over-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/openai-founder-recalls-drinking-whiskey-with-amber-heard-at-musks-haunted-mansion-then-a-fight-over-control\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenAI founder recalls drinking whiskey with Amber Heard at Musk&#8217;s &#8216;haunted mansion&#8217; \u2014 then a fight over control"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69fa446af422d5efcf5067db?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Greg Brockman arriving in court on Monday\"\/><figcaption>Greg Brockman arriving in court on Monday<\/p>\n<p>Bloomberg\/Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman returned for a second day of testimony at the Musk v Altman trial.<\/li>\n<li>He recalled a &quot;celebratory&quot; gathering where Musk&#039;s then-girlfriend, Amber Heard, served whiskey.<\/li>\n<li>Musk was excited by OpenAI&#039;s for-profit prospects \u2014 then resigned in a fight over control, he said. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In the summer of 2017, Elon Musk hosted a festive gathering for OpenAI&#039;s cofounders at his Bay Area &quot;haunted mansion.&quot; Amber Heard, his then-girlfriend, poured the whiskey as they celebrated the company&#039;s future.<\/p>\n<p>Days later, as the cofounders gathered again, Musk erupted in a bitter play for control of the company.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;He stood up, and he kind of stormed around the table,&quot; OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman told jurors on Tuesday in the ongoing federal trial pitting Musk against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.<\/p>\n<p>In detail-rich testimony, Brockman described Jekyll and Hyde-level swings of temperament by the Tesla CEO \u2014 from happy party host one day to tantrum-throwing control freak the next.<\/p>\n<p>The testimony by Brockman, a longtime Altman loyalist who is now OpenAI&#039;s president, was not only vivid but could prove strategically helpful for Altman&#039;s side.<\/p>\n<p>In taking Altman to trial, Musk hopes to prove that Altman and Brockman deceived him into donating $38 million to OpenAI when it was a nonprofit dedicated to helping humanity, only to pivot to a for-profit for personal gain. <\/p>\n<p>But Brockman told jurors Tuesday that throughout 2017, Musk eagerly pursued turning the company into a for-profit. Musk felt that keeping OpenAI solely nonprofit was deterring investors, including Bill Gates, Brockman testified.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;He asked Gates four times to donate, and Gates didn&#039;t even come to the office,&quot; Brockman told the jury.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately \u2014 at that second cofounder meeting, days after the party where Heard poured the group &quot;some very good whiskey&quot; \u2014 Musk played his big card, cash.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;It started out very pleasant,&quot; Brockman said. &quot;I&#039;d like you to have this Tesla painting,&quot; as a gesture of goodwill, Brockman recalled cofounder Ilya Sutskever telling Musk.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Then the conversation turned to equity,&quot; Brockman said. &quot;And something really changed. Something just shifted in him,&quot; Brockman said of Musk.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;And he was angry. He was upset.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Musk wanted to control OpenAI and to be its CEO, Brockman told the jury \u2014 something the rest of the founders objected to.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;At the end of the meeting, he just sat quiet for several minutes, just thinking,&quot; Brockman told jurors. &quot;And he said, &#039;I decline.&#039; He was not going to accept these terms.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Musk got up, &quot;kind of stormed around the table,&quot; and lunged toward him, Brockman testified. &quot;I thought he was going to hit me,&quot; Brockman told the jury. <\/p>\n<p>Instead, Musk grabbed the painting of a Tesla that was behind Brockman, he testified.<\/p>\n<p>Musk&#039;s final words, painting in hand, as he &quot;started to storm out of the room,&quot; were these, Brockman said: &quot;I will withhold funding until you decide what you&#039;re going to do.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>&quot;And then he left the August 29 meeting.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Then board member Shivon Zilis called later that night, Brockman testified, saying she had spoken with Musk and &quot;Hey, it&#039;s not over.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>But &quot;it is wrong to give unilateral control,&quot; Brockman said of opposing Musk&#039;s terms.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Greg Brockman arriving in court on Monday Bloomberg\/Bloomberg via Getty Images OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman returned for a second day of testimony at the Musk v Altman trial. He recalled a &quot;celebratory&quot; gathering where Musk&#039;s then-girlfriend, Amber Heard, served whiskey. Musk was excited by OpenAI&#039;s for-profit prospects \u2014 then resigned in a fight over control, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50033,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-50032","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}