Elon Musk Hires Lawyer Who Is Also A Professional Clown In Legal Battle Against OpenAI's Sam Altman

Elon Musk has hired a lawyer who moonlights as a clown in his public legal battle against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Jaymie Parkkinen, a lawyer with Toberoff & Associates, is representing the Tesla boss in the case over the origins of OpenAI. Musk co-founded OpenAI with Altman in 2015, but later left over divisions on how to run the business and secure funding.

According to a report in Business Insider, Parkkinen has been leading the litigation battle from Musk's side alongside another firm, while Altman has assembled a team of elite firms, including Morrison & Foerster and Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz.

Despite the size of the fight, Parkkinen not only performs as a clown, but operates his own "Clown Cardio business" in Los Angeles. Parkkinen says he founded the clown business after realising that the physical comedy required for clowns could make for a good workout. 

"All my comedy friends, none of them can believe I'm a lawyer. And none of my lawyer friends can believe I do clown," Parkkinen was quoted as saying by the outlet.

Quizzed if he was a 'Ronald McDonald' kind of clown who performs at birthday parties, Parkkinen said he uses the word "clown" the way people might say "improv" or "comedy."

"When you strip away all the social masks that we all wear, if you strip away gender and politics and money and status and power, and you're just your raw human self without all of the trappings of society - who are you? And clown tries to answer that question," said Parkkinen.

As per Parkkinen, the performance side of being a clown has helped him in the legal world since litigation is also a performance.

“At the end of the day, it's just about connecting with people, and so is being a lawyer,” he said. “You're connecting with a judge, a jury, opposing counsel.”

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Musk-Altman Legal Tussle

Musk, who launched his xAI startup in 2023, has claimed that OpenAI abandoned all pretence of proceeding as a charity to benefit humanity, which was one of its core founding principles. The feud between the two billionaires has only turned more hostile as Musk attempted to block OpenAI's plans to convert to a for-profit enterprise last year.

In September, xAI accused OpenAI of stealing its trade secrets in a new lawsuit. Musk's attorneys claimed that OpenAI was engaged in a "deeply troubling pattern" of hiring away former xAI employees to gain access to trade secrets related to its AI chatbot Grok.