The 83-year-old former leader was flown to Cairo from Sharm el Sheikh on the Red Sea, where he has been in custody in hospital since April.
In the dock Mubarak was joined by his two sons Alaa and Gamal, former interior minister Habib al-Adly, and six of his deputies.
Businessman Hussein Salem is being tried in absentia.
A special cage has been set up for the defendants inside the court at the police academy in Cairo as a security measure.
Mubarak's lawyer has for weeks argued the former president is too ill to stand trial.
He has reportedly had a heart attack in recent months and may be suffering from cancer.
But the military government is under enormous pressure from Egyptians to bring him to justice for alleged corruption and for his role - if any - in ordering the deaths of protesters during the uprising in February.
The Mubaraks are accused of graft and ordering the killing of anti-regime protesters during the huge popular uprising that forced the president to stand down and transfer power to the military.
On April 10, in his first public statement since his resignation, Mubarak told pan-Arab news network Al-Arabiya that he and his family were the victims of "false claims that seek to ruin my reputation and challenge my integrity".
In a move that angered many Egyptians, he even threatened libel suits against any media reporting the allegations against him.
Until the anti-government protests erupted on January 25, Mubarak seemed untouchable as president of the most populous nation in the Arab world, backed by the US and the military from whose ranks he had emerged.
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