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OpenAI’s president does “all the things,” except answer a question
Brief published May 6, 2026 · Original source published May 4, 2026
Original reporting by Elizabeth Lopatto at theverge.com.
Automated brief. Verify important details at the original source.
OpenAI President Discovers Revolutionary New Form of Testimony: Professional Amnesia
Greg Brockman took the stand this week and delivered a masterclass in advanced evasion techniques, proving that OpenAI's real breakthrough isn't artificial intelligence but artificially forgetting literally everything that matters.
The co-founder and president of the company that claims to be building superhuman intelligence spent his court appearance demonstrating a memory so selectively impaired it makes goldfish look like elephants. Brockman was testifying in Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI, where Musk alleges his former AI darling betrayed its nonprofit mission faster than a Tesla on Autopilot heading toward a concrete barrier.
The legal drama stems from Musk's claim that OpenAI pulled a classic Silicon Valley bait-and-switch: promise to democratize AI for humanity's benefit, then immediately pivot to making Sam Altman richer than a small nation's GDP. It's the kind of story that would be unbelievable if we hadn't watched Facebook promise to connect the world while simultaneously destroying democracy, or Google pledge to "don't be evil" while building the most comprehensive surveillance apparatus in human history.
What made Brockman's testimony particularly entertaining was the legal theater involved. In a move that would make courtroom procedural writers weep with envy, he was cross-examined first, then given a direct examination afterward. It's like watching someone get roasted before they've even had a chance to introduce themselves, which, honestly, feels appropriate for a company that released ChatGPT and then spent the next year explaining why nobody should trust it.
The star witness against OpenAI, however, wasn't Brockman's live performance but his own journal entries, which apparently documented OpenAI's transformation from nonprofit savior to for-profit overlord with the meticulous detail of someone who definitely didn't expect to be sued by the richest man on Earth. These journals paint a picture of internal discussions about money, control, and the classic startup question of whether to stick to your principles or buy a really nice house in Palo Alto. (Spoiler alert: the house usually wins.)
Brockman's selective memory loss was so comprehensive it bordered on performance art. Asked about crucial decisions, pivotal meetings, and fundamental changes to the company's structure, he deployed the corporate executive's greatest superpower: the ability to forget anything inconvenient while remembering in perfect detail why the cafeteria switched from oat milk to almond milk in 2019. It's a skill that takes years to perfect, typically acquired through extensive training at McKinsey or watching enough congressional hearings to understand that "I don't recall" is basically a get-out-of-jail-free card with unlimited uses.
The underlying legal question is whether OpenAI violated its founding agreements when it decided that making money was more important than making the world a better place. This puts the court in the awkward position of determining whether a bunch of tech bros actually meant it when they said they wanted to help humanity, or if they were just really committed to their personal brands until Microsoft showed up with a dump truck full of money.
The irony here is almost too perfect to be real. OpenAI built systems that can remember and synthesize information from millions of documents, create coherent responses about complex topics, and maintain context across lengthy conversations. Meanwhile, its president sat in court unable to remember basic facts about his own company's history. If this were a Turing test, Brockman would have failed by demonstrating intelligence significantly below that of GPT-3.
For the rest of us watching this corporate soap opera unfold, Brockman's testimony serves as a reminder that the people building our AI future are just as capable of selective amnesia and creative truth-telling as any other industry. The real artificial intelligence was the corporate doublespeak we made along the way.
The case continues, presumably with more witnesses who will remember everything except the things that matter, and Musk's legal team will keep trying to prove that promises made in Silicon Valley are worth about as much as a Dogecoin investment strategy. Meanwhile, ChatGPT sits there with perfect recall of billions of training examples, silently judging us all.