Musk’s attorney apologizes for his absence at trial during closing arguments

Artificial intelligenceMusk’s attorney apologizes for his absence at trial during closing arguments Elon Musk had traveled to China with President Donald Trump despite the judge in the case saying he was not excused.Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00Elon Musk and Sam Altman in elevators at federal court in Oakland, Calif.Benjamin Fanjoy / Getty ImagesShareAdd NBC News to GoogleMay 14, 2026, 4:02 PM EDTBy David IngramOAKLAND, Calif. — A lawyer for tech billionaire Elon Musk apologized to jurors on Thursday for his client’s absence from the courtroom and asked them not to read too much into it, as closing statements began in Musk’s lawsuit against artificial intelligence startup OpenAI.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.“He’s sorry that he could not be here, but I think you saw from his testimony that this is something that he’s passionate about,” said the lawyer, Steven Molo.As a three-week blockbuster federal trial neared its end, Musk was half a world away in China, joining President Donald Trump and other U.S. business executives on an official state visit. He traveled there a day earlier, despite the trial judge having told him that he was not excused from testimony and could be recalled to the stand.In Beijing, Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, said that talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping had been “awesome.”Musk’s lawsuit centers around OpenAI’s decision to create a for-profit arm with outside investors in order to pay for the researchers and computing power that fuel its research and its signature app, ChatGPT. Musk, a co-founder and early donor, alleges that OpenAI has betrayed its nonprofit origins, while OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, say that a nonprofit foundation still controls the organization and that Musk agreed with them about creating a for-profit arm.Though Musk initiated the case and pushed for it to go to trial, he has not been in court for two weeks. He test...