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Musk lawyer apologizes to OpenAI jury for CEO's absence during closing arguments

Cnbc · 🇨🇳 public China · · 246 words · By Lora Kolodny
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What to know about Musk lawyer apologizes to OpenAI jury for CEO's absence during closing arguments

Elon Musk's lead counsel, Steven Molo, apologized to the jury for his absence on Thursday, with the Tesla CEO accompanying President Donald Trump in China as closing arguments were made in the Musk-Altman trial.

Claims checked 7
Techniques found 0
Topics 0

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage
Left0%
Center75%
Right25%

4 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

Elon Musk's lead counsel, Steven Molo, apologized to the jury for his absence on Thursday, with the Tesla CEO accompanying President Donald Trump in China as closing arguments were made in the Musk-Altman trial.

Why it matters

"This is something he is passionate about," Molo assured the jury about Musk's attention to the trial.

Common ground

The trial in federal court stems from a lawsuit Musk brought against his OpenAI co-founders, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, alleging they had violated a promise to keep their company a nonprofit, and had unjustly enriched themselves by restructuring the…

Perspective signals

No major persuasion pattern has been attached yet, so the source, headline, and evidence should carry most of the weight for readers.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/14/musk-lawyer-trial-jury-china-trip-openai-altman.…

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 7 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

check_circle Corroborated 4
verified Verified By Reference 2
info Single Source 1
verified
Claim 1: “Musk traveled with Trump before closing arguments were underway to Beijing, after being invited by President Donald Trump to join him for a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
Wikipedia confirms a state visit by Donald Trump to China in May 2026, and web search results confirm Musk was invited to join the delegation to meet President Xi Jinping.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The 2024 G20 Rio de Janeiro summit (Portuguese: Cúpula do G20 Rio de Janeiro 2024) was the nineteenth meeting of Group of Twenty (G20), a Heads of State and Government meeting held at the Museum of Mo…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_G20_Rio_de_Janeiro_summit
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — From 13 to 15 May 2026, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, is making a state visit to China. This visit is Trump's second state visit to China, and the first to occur during his second …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_state_visit_by_Donald_Tru…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Rosângela Lula da Silva (born 27 August 1966), commonly known as Janja, is the first lady of Brazil as the wife of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Previously, she was an assistant to the Director…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosângela_Lula_da_Silva
+ 3 more evidence sources
verified
Claim 2: “The trial in federal court stems from a lawsuit Musk brought against his OpenAI co-founders, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
Wikipedia and multiple news sources confirm Musk filed a federal lawsuit against OpenAI, Sam Altman, and Greg Brockman.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI is a book by Karen Hao released on May 20, 2025. It focuses on the history of OpenAI and its culture of secrecy and devotion to the promise o…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_AI
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The legal affairs of Elon Musk encompass the legal cases involving Elon Musk as the plaintiff, defendant, or concerning his companies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_affairs_of_Elon_Musk
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Musk v. Altman is an ongoing lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in which Elon Musk accuses OpenAI and its executives, including CEO Sam Altman, of viol…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musk_v._Altman
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 3: “alleging they had violated a promise to keep their company a nonprofit, and had unjustly enriched themselves by restructuring the business”
CORROBORATED
Multiple sources, including The Guardian and Wikipedia, confirm the lawsuit alleges a violation of the nonprofit promise and unjust enrichment/profit maximization.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Gregory Brockman (born November 29, 1987) is an American entrepreneur and software engineer. He is co-founder and president of OpenAI. He began his career at Stripe in 2010, upon leaving MIT, and beca…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Brockman
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Musk v. Altman is an ongoing lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in which Elon Musk accuses OpenAI and its executives, including CEO Sam Altman, of viol…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musk_v._Altman
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Samuel Harris Altman (born April 22, 1985) is an American entrepreneur who has been the chief executive officer (CEO) of the artificial intelligence company OpenAI since 2019. Altman attended Stanford…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Altman
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 4: “the Tesla CEO accompanying President Donald Trump in China as closing arguments were made in the Musk-Altman trial”
CORROBORATED
Multiple web search results (NBC News via search snippets) confirm Elon Musk traveled to China with Donald Trump during the ongoing OpenAI trial.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — On January 20, 2025, while speaking at a rally celebrating U.S. president Donald Trump's second inauguration, businessman and political figure Elon Musk twice made a salute interpreted by many as a Na…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk_salute_controversy
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Elon Musk has been actively involved in politics, particularly in the United States and Europe, throughout the majority of his business career. Despite historically donating to and voting for both Dem…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_activities_of_Elon_M…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — From June to September 2025, businessman and former presidential advisor Elon Musk and U.S. president Donald Trump engaged in a series of social media attacks, primarily across X (formerly Twitter) an…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump–Musk_feud
+ 3 more evidence sources
info
Claim 5: “Elon Musk's lead counsel, Steven Molo, apologized to the jury for his absence on Thursday”
SINGLE SOURCE
While evidence confirms Steven Molo is Musk's lawyer and was active in the trial, none of the provided search results mention an apology to the jury for an absence on Thursday.
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web search NEUTRAL — Quora is a place to gain and share knowledge. It's a platform to ask questions and connect with people who contribute unique insights and quality answers. This empowers people to learn from each other…
https://www.quora.com/
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web search NEUTRAL — Musk and his lawyer, Steven Molo, are looking at email exchanges showing that Musk, at the time, proposed a five-person board for OpenAI consisting of himself, Altman, Bill Gates, Pierre Omidyar, and …
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-sam-altman-openai-…
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web search NEUTRAL — “You told the board that Altman ‘exhibits a consistent pattern of lying, undermining his execs and pitting his execs against one another’,” Musk’s lawyer Steven Molo asked Sutskever.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/11/musk-v-opena…
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Claim 6: “Besides the Tesla and Space X chief, Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang, and Apple CEO Tim Cook were part of Trump's delegation”
CORROBORATED
Multiple web search results confirm that Tim Cook (Apple) and Jensen Huang (Nvidia) were part of Trump's delegation to China.
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web search NEUTRAL — Chief Executives to Accompany Trump to China. The delegation includes business leaders across a wide range of industries, including Tim Cook of Apple and Elon Musk of Tesla. Nvidia’s Jensen Huang was …
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/us/politics/trump-china-m…
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web search NEUTRAL — Jacob Thaysen, chief executive of Illumina. Michael Miebach, president of Mastercard. It is also notable that Sanjay Mehrotra, the CEO of Micron Technology, will be part of Trump's delegation.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yx757w048o
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web search NEUTRAL — Donald Trump's 'CEO crew' to Beijing is almost as rich as the world's third-largest economy. 6 hours ago. Save for later.Trump slams report of Nvidia CEO not being part of his delegation for China vis…
https://news.google.com/stories/CAAqNggKIjBDQklTSGpvSmMzUnZj…
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Claim 7: “Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers had previously placed Musk on "recall status," meaning he was supposed to be available to return to the court, if needed, to testify on short notice”
CORROBORATED
Multiple web search results explicitly state that Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers placed Musk on 'recall status' and that he left for China despite this.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The election denial movement in the United States is a widespread false belief that elections in the United States are rigged and stolen through election fraud by the opposing political party. Adheren…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_denial_movement_in_th…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Musk v. Altman is an ongoing lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in which Elon Musk accuses OpenAI and its executives, including CEO Sam Altman, of viol…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musk_v._Altman
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web search NEUTRAL — Elon Musk traveled to China during his ongoing civil trial against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers placed Musk on recall status, allowing him to be called back to tes…
https://www.news-mash.com/2026/05/13/elon-musk-travels-to-ch…
+ 2 more evidence sources
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.