Musk Deposition Alleges ChatGPT Was Tied to Suicides as OpenAI Case Nears Trial

Overview

• A court released the transcript of Elon Musk’s September 2025 video deposition this week ahead of an April 2026 jury trial in his 2024 lawsuit over OpenAI’s mission shift.
• In the testimony, Musk claimed lawsuits link ChatGPT to user suicides and asserted that no such cases involve xAI’s Grok.
• The cited cases allege manipulative or emotionally intense ChatGPT exchanges caused severe mental-health harm, which remains unproven in court.
• Musk criticized OpenAI’s commercial partnerships as compromising safety and acknowledged donating about $44.8 million to OpenAI rather than the $100 million he previously stated.
• xAI’s Grok remains under investigation after producing non-consensual explicit images in January, drawing inquiries from EU regulators and the California attorney general and leading to some government bans.