Elon Musk’s Worst Enemy in Court? Himself

About five hours into Elon Musk’s testimony, I typed the following sentence into my notes: “I have never been more sympathetic to Sam Altman in my life.”

That’s not something I ever expected to write. But there I was, watching Musk’s direct testimony—which was actually an improvement over the previous day, even if his lawyer kept feeding him leading questions like a parent prompting a kid through a school play. And then came cross-examination.

It was miserable. For hours, Musk refused to answer yes-or-no questions with yes or no. He occasionally “forgot” things he’d testified to that very morning. He scolded defense lawyer William Savitt like a teacher dressing down a misbehaving student. I watched a few jury members glance at each other during one particularly testy exchange. One woman just looked… tired.

This is the same guy who keeps insisting he’s a simple country CEO being tricked by sophisticated lawyers. But the courtroom doesn’t care about your brand. It cares about whether you can answer a straight question. And Musk couldn’t.

The irony is thick. Musk has spent years positioning himself as the ultimate disruptor—someone who plays by his own rules and wins. But in a federal courtroom, that persona is a liability. The judge doesn’t care about your Twitter following. The jury doesn’t care about your rocket launches. They care about credibility, and Musk spent hours burning his.

I’ve covered a lot of tech CEO testimonies. Most of them are boring. They’re coached, polished, and deliberately forgettable. Musk’s was the opposite—it was riveting in the worst way. Every refusal to answer, every snide remark, every moment of selective amnesia just made him look less trustworthy.

And the worst part? He’s doing it to himself. No one forced him to take the stand. No one made him act like a petulant teenager in a room full of adults. He could have just said “yes” and “no” and been done with it. But that’s not who he is.

By the end of the day, I wasn’t just sympathetic to Altman—I was genuinely impressed he’d kept his cool through years of dealing with this. Musk’s worst enemy in court isn’t the lawyers, the judge, or the jury. It’s the guy in the mirror.