Elon Musk lies about owning a laptop
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Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Elon Musk podcast. This is a show where we discuss the critical crossroads that shape SpaceX, Tesla, X, the Boring Company, and Neuralink. I'm your host, Will Walden. Elon Musk's legal team told a federal court that he does not use a computer, even though Elon Musk has posted multiple photos of his laptop and discussed his computer habits on social media, including on his platform X.

Now, this contradiction appeared in a legal filing submitted on Sunday as part of Elon Musk's ongoing lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman. Musk's legal team made the claim to explain their data search process during discovery, saying they had already searched his phone and email and asserted that Elon Musk doesn't even use a computer.

Finally, in response to OpenAI's accusation that Musk and his company, XAI, failed to comply with court-ordered discovery. Musk's statement stands at odds with his own history of laptop use. In December of 2024, Musk posted a photo of a laptop bearing a Dogecoin sticker and wrote, "This is a pic of my laptop. A guy in Germany gave me this cool sticker, so I don't want to upgrade it and lose the sticker."

He referenced the same laptop again a month later, responding to a question about gaming, saying, still using my ancient PC laptop with the at Doge sticker made long ago by a fan. And Musk has also mentioned using both a desktop PC and a Mac in previous posts.

Employees at X told Wired that Musk mostly operates from his phone but occasionally uses a laptop. Wired also reported the photos of Musk's office in Washington, D.C.'s Eisenhower Executive Office building showed a gaming PC setup. These public and private details undermine the legal team's statement that he doesn't even use a computer.

The lawsuit stems from Musk's long-running feud with OpenAI, which he co-founded in 2015. Musk originally joined the company to ensure that artificial intelligence development stayed non-commercial and served the public good. OpenAI's transformation into a capped profit structure and its close business relationship with Microsoft fueled Musk's departure from the board in 2018 and eventually led him to sue the company earlier this year.

Musk argues that OpenAI breached its founding contract by building AI systems primarily to benefit Microsoft rather than humanity at large. He also claims that OpenAI's current profit-seeking structure contradicts the original agreement among the company's founders. Though a judge declined to block OpenAI's for-profit operations, she allowed the case to move towards a trial scheduled for this year.

As tensions escalated, OpenAI responded with its own legal action against Elon Musk. It accused him of unfair competition and interfering with business relationships, including those with investors and customers. The countersuit framed Musk's claims as an attempt to undermine OpenAI's success with ChatGPT, which launched publicly in 2022.

Musk launched XAI in 2023 to pursue his version of AI development, promising greater openness and adherence to safety. The company has since become part of a broader effort by Musk to build technology alternatives to those owned by competitors, including OpenAI, Google, and Meta. The courtroom dispute between Musk and OpenAI continues.

is a deeper disagreement about AI's direction and ownership. OpenAI started as a nonprofit backed by idealistic promises, but it's since evolved into a commercial operation that relies on exclusivity deals, including a major partnership with Microsoft. Musk's response has been to criticize this evolution and try to build an alternative from scratch. Both sides in this legal battle accuse the other of betraying foundational values. Musk claims OpenAI abandoned its original mission for commercial gain.

OpenAI accuses Musk of exploiting the company's growth to serve his personal and competitive interests. The trial, if it proceeds as scheduled, will force both sides to present detailed records about the company's early agreements, internal decisions and documents, and business motivations. And it will also revisit the founding era of OpenAI and the evolution that brought it to its current position.

Now, Elon's denial of computer use adds kind of a bizarre detail to this case that's already defined by sharp personal and legal conflicts between Elon Musk and Sam Altman and the other members of OpenAI. And the trial is expected to clarify the legal boundaries of startup founding agreements and how much power

Those original intentions carry once a company like OpenAI changes direction, goes for profit and makes billions of dollars as opposed to staying as a nonprofit that is there to just benefit humanity.

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