Ilya Sutskever Stands by His Role in Sam Altman’s OpenAI Ouster: ‘I Didn’t Want It to Be Destroyed’

A striking development has emerged in artificial intelligence. Paresh DaveMaxwell ZeffBusinessMay 11, 2026 7:51 PMIlya Sutskever Stands by His Role in Sam Altman’s OpenAI Ouster: ‘I Didn’t Want It to Be Destroyed’The former OpenAI chief scientist may be estranged from the company, but he still came to its defense as he testified on Monday. Photo-Illustration: WIRED staff; Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images Save this story Save this storyElon Musk’s trial against OpenAI and Microsoft entered its final stretch on Monday, with testimony from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, and current OpenAI chairman Bret Taylor. Sutskever drew the spotlight, revealing an ownership stake in OpenAI’s $850-billion for-profit arm that is currently worth about $7 billion.

That makes him one of the largest known individual shareholders of OpenAI. Earlier in the trial, OpenAI president Greg Brockman acknowledged for the first time that he has around $30 billion worth of OpenAI shares. Brockman was one of the research lab’s original cofounders, and Sutskever joined shortly afterward, turning down a $6 million annual compensation offer from Google.

Technical Details

Brockman said he and Sutskever were “joined at the hip,” until Sutskever helped lead Sam Altman’s brief removal as OpenAI CEO in 2023. Sutskever had helped collect evidence to show Altman’s alleged history of deception, and even assisted in drafting a memo to the board. Though they tried to repair the relationship, Sutskever has been estranged from Brockman and Altman ever since, a lawyer for OpenAI said on Monday.

Sutskever, who arrived in the courtroom wearing a dress shirt and slacks, the first male witness to testify without a suit jacket, appeared to be dejected about no longer being involved with OpenAI. (He left and formed a competing AI lab in 2024. ) “I felt a great deal of ownership of OpenAI,” he said at one point Monday.

“I felt like I put my life into it, and I simply cared for it, and I didn’t want it to be destroyed. ”Are you a current or former OpenAI employee who wants to talk about what's happening? We'd like to hear from you.

Industry Implications

Using a nonwork phone or computer, contact the reporters securely on Signal at mzeff. Sutskever’s testimony bolstered Musk’s contention that Altman is not the right person to lead an AI lab that could create artificial general intelligence. In addition, Sutskever mentioned how the superalignment team he helped lead, which focused on the safety of future models, was doing the most important work at OpenAI “for the long term.

” The team was disbanded in May 2024, shortly after Sutskever left the company. But Sutskever also added to OpenAI’s defense that Musk never negotiated any special promises when funding the OpenAI nonprofit. Musk’s allegation that such commitments existed and that Altman and Brockman violated them by pursuing a lucrative for-profit arm are the core of his claims in the lawsuit.

This advance offers important signals about the future of the sector, and the tech world is watching closely.