Musk Takes the Stand in OpenAI Trial

Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO and OpenAI cofounder, took the stand Tuesday in a high-stakes trial revolving around a bitter feud with his former friend Sam Altman that could reshape the future development of artificial intelligence. His testimony at the Oakland, California, federal courthouse kicked off a legal drama that is expected to brim with intrigue and potentially embarrassing details about the two tech moguls, the AP reports. Musk filed the lawsuit against Altman and his top lieutenant, Greg Brockman, along with Microsoft, over its investments in OpenAI, in 2024.

• "Fundamentally, I think they're going to try to make this lawsuit ... very complicated, but it's actually very simple," Musk said. "Which is that it's not OK to steal a charity." The nine-person jury was selected Monday and the trial is scheduled to take three weeks.
• Before opening statements began, Judge Gonzalez Rogers admonished Musk for social media posts about OpenAI, including posts calling its CEO "Scam" Altman, the New York Times reports. Musk and Altman agreed to "keep things to a minimum" on social media.

• In the civil lawsuit, Musk accuses Altman and Brockman of double-crossing him by straying from the San Francisco company's founding mission to be a steward of a revolutionary technology. Altman and Brockman, aided by Microsoft, stole a charity "whose mission was the safe, open development of artificial intelligence," Molo said. He said a 2022 deal with Microsoft violated "every commitment" OpenAI made not just to Musk but to the world.
• OpenAI has brushed off Musk's allegations as a case of sour grapes aimed at undercutting its rapid growth and bolstering Musk's own xAI, which he launched in 2023 as a competitor. In his opening statement, OpenAI lawyer William Savitt told jurors "we are here because Mr. Musk didn't get his way with OpenAI."
• Savitt said Musk used his promises of funding to bully OpenAI founding members and tried to take control of OpenAI and merge it with Tesla. In fact, he said Musk wanted to form a for-profit company and own more than 50% of it. There is no record, Savitt said, of promises made to Musk that OpenAI was going to remain a nonprofit forever. What Musk ultimately cared about, he said, was not OpenAI's nonprofit status but winning the AI race with Google.

• After opening statements, Musk's side began presenting a tale of alleged betrayal, deceit, and ambition that caused OpenAI to pivot from its founding mission as an altruistic startup to a capitalistic venture now valued at $852 billion.
• Musk was the first to testify, with his lawyer starting off asking about his life story, which included time working as a lumberjack after he moved from South Africa to Canada at age 17. Molo also asked Musk about his views on AI. Musk said he expects AI to be "smarter than any human" as soon as next year. Musk said a longstanding concern about AI is the question of what happens when computers become much smarter than humans. Comparing it to having a "very smart child," Musk said when the child grows up "you can't control that child," but you can instill values such as honesty, integrity and being good.
• Musk recounted his version of OpenAI's founding, which he said essentially happened because of a discussion he had with Google co-founder Larry Page, who called him a "speciesist" for elevating the survival of humanity over that of AI. "I wanted a company to be a counterweight to Google—to be the opposite of Google," he testified. At that time, Musk said, Google had all the money, all the computers and all the talent for AI. "There was no counterbalance."
• Musk recalled there was discussion early on about alternative sources for funding OpenAI beyond donations, and he wasn't opposed to it having a for-profit arm, but "the tail shouldn't wag the dog." There would be a profit limit, and once artificial general intelligence, or AGI, was "figured out," the for-profit would cease to exist, he said.
• Musk is expected to continue testifying Wednesday. Altman is also expected to testify, along with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, one of the tech leaders who helped fund the late 2022 release of ChatGPT.