Greg Brockman's two days of testimony in Musk v. Altman closed Tuesday afternoon, and the trial moved past the personal-finance theatrics into the disclosure question that matters for the rest of the AI sector. Brockman confirmed that OpenAI is exploring an initial public offering, said his stake in the company is worth nearly $30 billion, and acknowledged from the stand that he holds positions in both Cerebras and Helion — companies that count OpenAI as a customer or partner. [1] [2] The paper's Tuesday major on Brockman's first day framed the trial as a fiduciary-disclosure question; today's standard tracks how Day 3 collapsed that frame onto Cerebras's pricing window six trading days from now.

The Day 1 tape carried by Tuesday's print: Musk attorney Steven Molo mentioned the $30 billion figure "more than a dozen times" across two hours of cross-examination. [1] He read aloud from a 2017 journal entry in which Brockman wrote, "Financially, what will take me to $1B?" and pressed Brockman on whether he should "give the $29 billion back to the charity." [3] Brockman's reply: "That's not how I think about it. There are assumptions baked into the question." Molo also asked whether it took $30 billion "to get you out of bed in the morning, but $1 billion doesn't get you out of bed in the morning?" The exchange was preserved in the transcript. The phrase "the most well-capitalized nonprofit in human history" was Brockman's framing of OpenAI's structure under direct.

Tuesday — Day 2 of testimony — added two pieces that compound the disclosure question. First, Brockman testified that Musk had ordered OpenAI engineers to do months of unpaid work on Tesla's self-driving program, citing former OpenAI board member Shivon Zilis and Sam Teller as the proxies Musk used to manage that work. [4] Second, Brockman confirmed OpenAI is "exploring" an IPO at the company's $850-billion-plus valuation. [5] That confirmation, given under oath in federal court, is now a public-record statement the underwriters of any future OpenAI offering will have to address in S-1 risk factors.

Day 3 — the trial reconvenes today at 8:30 a.m. Pacific — is set up to put Zilis on the stand. [4] Two narrative arcs converge there. The first: Zilis was an OpenAI board member, a longtime Musk associate, and the mother of four of Musk's children. Her testimony will determine whether the secret-Tesla-work allegation produces document evidence beyond Brockman's recollection. The second: Brockman's stakes in Cerebras and Helion.

Cerebras is the operative cross. The Sunnyvale chipmaker prices its IPO May 13 and trades May 14 under ticker CBRS at a $26.6 billion fully-diluted valuation. [6] More than 60% of contracted forward Cerebras revenue, by public filings, is concentrated in OpenAI's $20 billion, 750-megawatt compute deal that runs through 2028. [7] Brockman's personal stake in Cerebras is now disclosed sworn testimony — which means the Cerebras S-1 risk factors are, as a matter of securities law, supposed to address whether OpenAI's president holds a side interest in OpenAI's biggest disclosed compute supplier. The May 4 S-1/A in its current form treats OpenAI as the named anchor customer but does not catalog Brockman's holdings. [8] Cerebras has six business days to amend if its lawyers conclude Tuesday's testimony triggers a 10b-5 disclosure obligation.

Helion is the second cross. The fusion-energy startup partners with Microsoft on a 2028 power-purchase agreement and counts OpenAI's Sam Altman among its largest investors. Brockman's ownership of a Helion stake puts a second OpenAI executive at a financial-interest junction with an OpenAI counterparty. The trial transcript is the document on which that disclosure now lives.

The fiduciary question was always the lawsuit's frame. The IPO question is the reason next week's tape — Cerebras pricing on Tuesday, OpenAI exploring on the stand — turns it into a securities-law artifact. The trial's outcome can validate or repudiate the for-profit conversion. The disclosure obligations the trial has already produced run independent of the verdict.

-- THEO KAPLAN, San Francisco