What's at stake in the Elon Musk-Sam Altman trial

Jury selection begins Monday in a federal courtroom in Oakland, California, in a civil trial featuring one tech billionaire, Elon Musk, who is suing another, Sam Altman.

SAN FRANCISCO — It’s a trial so unusual, not even artificial intelligence could make it up.

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Jury selection begins Monday in a federal courtroom in Oakland, California, in a civil trial that features one tech billionaire, Elon Musk, suing another, Sam Altman. The case is one part business dispute and one part highly personal grudge match — and it could determine the future of red-hot startup OpenAI and its signature app, ChatGPT.

The trial is scheduled to run for four weeks, with a cast of prominent tech executives set to testify. Witnesses are expected to include not only Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, but possibly also Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and current and former OpenAI board members, as well as top AI researchers.