<\/p>\n
Elon Musk testified Tuesday he\u2019s suing OpenAI and two of its co-founders \u2014 Sam Altman and Greg Brockman \u2014 because the startup\u2019s pivot from a charity to a for-profit business is wrong and sets a concerning precedent for other philanthropic efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not okay to steal a charity, that\u2019s my view,\u201d Musk told jurors at the outset of a trial in federal court in Oakland, California.<\/p>\n
The closely watched trial is the culmination of years of animosity and public feuding over the startup the three men worked together to found in 2015, before their relationship soured and they became rivals.<\/p>\n
Musk said the consequences of the legal fight go far beyond the people involved, and that if Altman and Brockman\u2019s conduct isn\u2019t deemed improper, \u201cthis case will become case law and become precedent to looting every charity in America.\u201d<\/p>\n
An attorney for OpenAI, William Savitt, objected to Musk\u2019s explanation, asking US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers to strike the testimony because Musk isn\u2019t a lawyer who can provide legal analysis. Gonzalez Rogers denied the request.<\/p>\n
In his own statement to the jury, Savitt argued that Musk\u2019s lawsuit is primarily an attempt to undermine a top competitor to his own AI company, xAI. Savitt also contended that Musk himself was a proponent of restructuring OpenAI as a for-profit entity in its early years.<\/p>\n
The outcome of the three-week trial could shape OpenAI\u2019s future as it eyes a much-anticipated public offering that is poised to be one of the largest in history as the company approaches a trillion-dollar valuation. Among the changes Musk seeks is a court order unwinding the for-profit restructuring of OpenAI that was completed in October.<\/p>\n
Musk spent much of his early testimony telling the jury about his business ventures, including Zip2, PayPal, SpaceX, Neuralink and Tesla. He said he had long been interested in artificial intelligence but always had concerns about the technology becoming smarter and more powerful than human intelligence.<\/p>\n
Musk, wearing a black suit and tie as he has in other courtroom appearances, looked comfortable and enthusiastic on the witness stand, at times making short quips. The business mogul has testified before a number of juries in legal disputes around the country, winning most of his cases.<\/p>\n
Musk told jurors there was a risk that AI could be a \u201cdouble-edged sword,\u201d a tool that made significant contributions and advancements to society, but that something that could also go wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could make everyone prosperous, but it could also kill us all,\u201d Musk said.<\/p>\n
Around 2015, Musk said he was talking to \u201canyone and everyone\u201d he could about the capabilities of AI, along with his concerns about how the technology might be developed. That included Google co-founder Larry Page.<\/p>\n
ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Musk said he felt the tech executive \u201cwas not being sufficiently caring about the safety of AI\u201d and was dismissive of questions Musk asked about a hypothetical future where \u201cAI wipes out humans.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said that would be fine as long as artificial intelligence survives,\u201d Musk said. \u201cThen he called me a speciesist for caring about humans more than AI.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musk said he thought this was \u201cnuts\u201d and he became convinced there needed to be a counterpoint to Google\u2019s technology, because the company was an early leader in developing AI. At the time, Musk said they had \u201call the money, all the computers and all the talent for AI.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought, \u2018what would be the opposite of Google?\u2019\u201d Musk said. \u201cAn open source, nonprofit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alphabet Inc.\u2019s Google, which is not a party to the trial, didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Musk\u2019s lawyer, Steven Molo, told the jury the trial will show that Altman and Brockman took advantage of Musk\u2019s money, reputation and guidance to get OpenAI off the ground \u2014 and then decided to abandon its public-focused principles and capitalize on the project for their own benefit.<\/p>\n
Molo alleged that Microsoft Corp. was a knowing accomplice to that betrayal when the software giant pumped $13 billion into OpenAI starting in 2019, a year after Musk left the startup\u2019s board.<\/p>\n
Microsoft stood by Altman and Brockman as they made an \u201cabsolute mockery of OpenAI\u2019s charitable mission,\u201d Molo told the nine-person jury.<\/p>\n
In his own statement to the jury, Savitt said that in OpenAI\u2019s first year as a nonprofit research lab, Musk said in an email: \u201cprobably better to have a standard C corp with a parallel nonprofit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next year, Musk said in another email that \u201cit might have been a mistake for OpenAI to be set up as a nonprofit, given progress Deepmind was making,\u201d Savitt said, referring to an AI project at Google.<\/p>\n
In 2017, Musk and others at OpenAI recognized the company would need to spend far more on computing resources to support its technology than they had previously expected. The founders had \u201cdozens\u201d of meetings and aligned on an idea to create a for-profit arm.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring these intense discussions in 2017, Mr. Musk never expressed the view that OpenAI should remain purely nonprofit,\u201d Savitt said. \u201cThe exact opposite was the case.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musk, Savitt said, \u201cwanted to turn OpenAI into a full-on for-profit company and take absolute control of it,\u201d but \u201cthe other founders refused to turn the keys of artificial intelligence over to one person.\u201d<\/p>\n
ADVERTISEMENT:<\/p>\n
CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Musk said during his testimony that he was always open to the idea of creating a for-profit subsidiary of OpenAI, so long as profits were capped and any money it did make would go to the nonprofit.<\/p>\n
One proposal being discussed at the time would have given the four key leaders at OpenAI an equal equity split in the for-profit entity. That group would include Musk, Altman, Brockman and Ilya Sutskever, who was OpenAI\u2019s chief scientist.<\/p>\n
Musk said he felt that would be \u201cunfair and inappropriate,\u201d given that he was \u201cproviding all of the funding\u201d up to that point. He had hoped to hold the majority interest in an OpenAI for profit \u2014 a position he expected to weaken quickly, as more investors came forward.<\/p>\n
Today, OpenAI\u2019s nonprofit foundation remains in control of the organization. As part of its for-profit conversion last year, the company said OpenAI would continue to be overseen by the nonprofit entity, now dubbed the OpenAI Foundation. The nonprofit also received a 26% equity stake in the company. Microsoft got a 27% stake.<\/p>\n
Russell Cohen, an attorney for Microsoft, said the dispute has little to do with the software company, which he said \u201chas been a responsible partner every step of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTogether Microsoft and OpenAI have helped fund one of the largest nonprofits in history,\u201d he told the jury.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnlike Mr. Musk, Microsoft never tried to control OpenAI,\u201d Cohen argued. \u201cIt saw a partnership without control. It saw a partnership that could benefit everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
The jury is set to hear from a parade of VIP witnesses and will be asked to wade through years-old emails, text messages and corporate documents from OpenAI\u2019s founders.<\/p>\n
The jury will issue an \u201cadvisory verdict\u201d after the conclusion of testimony. A final ruling on Musk\u2019s claims \u2014 and any remedies \u2014 will be issued by Gonzalez Rogers, using the jury\u2019s findings as a guidepost.<\/p>\n
The case is Musk v. Altman, 4:24-cv-04722, US District Court, Northern District of California (Oakland).<\/p>\n
\u00a9 2026 Bloomberg<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
#Musk #testifies #hes #suing #OpenAI #stop #Altmans #looting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Elon Musk testified Tuesday he\u2019s suing OpenAI and two of its co-founders \u2014 Sam Altman and Greg Brockman \u2014 because the startup\u2019s pivot from a charity to a for-profit business… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[894,892,895,750,735,42,893,751],"class_list":["post-739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investing","tag-altmans","tag-hes","tag-looting","tag-musk","tag-openai","tag-stop","tag-suing","tag-testifies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}