Elon Musk was called as the first witness in the civil trial pitting him against Sam Altman. Bloomberg/Getty Images

Courtroom exhibits show Elon Musk once pitched "Freemind" for OpenAI's name.

In emails with Sam Altman, Musk framed the name as a "philosophical counter" to Google's AI lab.

Altman wasn't totally sold and offered up the name "Axon" or "something related to Turing."

Newly-revealed courtroom exhibits in the blockbuster case between Elon Musk and Sam Altman show how OpenAI nearly ended up with a different name — one intended as a jab at an AI rival.

Musk and Altman, along with others, founded OpenAI in December 2015 as a nonprofit AI research lab.

A November 2015 email exchange between the two shows how Musk pitched calling the firm "Freemind," framing the name as "partly an intentional philosophical counter" to Google's DeepMind AI lab.

"Least bad name I have thought of so far is Freemind.…