Musk v. OpenAI trial week 3: Nadella and Sutskever testify

Summary

Week 3 of the Musk v. OpenAI trial opened with testimony from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever. Nadella characterized Microsoft’s early investment as “a significant risk” and said Musk never raised concerns with him directly. Sutskever disclosed a ~$7B OpenAI stake, testified he spent a year gathering proof before voting to remove Altman, and stated “the mission of OpenAI is larger than the structure.” Evidence wraps Wednesday, closing statements Thursday — ahead of the projected ~May 21 timeline.

Implications

• Trial accelerating past the convergence week boundary — verdict could arrive before Google I/O (May 19-20), not during it
• Sutskever’s year-of-evidence claim aligns with Murati’s “at times deceptive” testimony to paint systematic governance concerns, not a sudden crisis
• Financial disclosures ($7B Sutskever, $30B Brockman) reveal the scale of departed founder wealth still tied to OpenAI’s for-profit transition
• Altman testifies Tuesday — cross-examination on governance timeline could be the most consequential trial moment
• Feeds: enterprise deployment battleground (governance dimension), token economics (OpenAI valuation context)