By Ashley Belanger
Publication Date: 2026-01-19 19:04:00
Only Musk’s contributions counted
Wazzan is “a financial economist with decades of professional and academic experience who has managed his own successful venture capital firm that provided seed-level funding to technology startups,” Musk’s filing said.
OpenAI explained how Musk got connected with Wazzan, who testified that he had never been hired by any of Musk’s companies before. Instead, three months before he submitted his opinions, Wazzan said that Musk’s legal team had reached out to his consulting firm, BRG, and the call was routed to him.
Wazzan’s task was to figure out how much Musk should be owed after investing $38 million in OpenAI—roughly 60 percent of its seed funding. Musk also made nonmonetary contributions Wazzan had to weigh, like “recruiting key employees, introducing business contacts, teaching his cofounders everything he knew about running a successful startup, and lending his prestige and reputation to the venture,”…