OAKLAND, California – Elon Musk faced tense questioning and showed frustration on the witness stand on April 30 during a second day of cross-examination by Sam Altman’s lawyer in a trial over a lawsuit Mr Musk brought accusing OpenAI of abandoning its mission to develop artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity.
The world’s richest person alleges that OpenAI, its co-founder and CEO Sam Altman, and its President Greg Brockman wooed his US$38 million (S$48.42 million) in donations by promising to build a nonprofit that would prioritise safe development of AI, before pivoting to create a for-profit entity to enrich themselves.
OpenAI has countered that Mr Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is driven by a compulsion to control OpenAI and is bitter about the company’s success after he left the board in 2018. They have also said he did not prioritise safety issues when he was with the company, and that he is trying to bolster his own AI company, SpaceX unit xAI, which lags OpenAI in user adoption.
William Savitt, a lawyer for OpenAI, Altman and Brockman, pressed Mr Musk on whether he had read a term sheet that Altman forwarded on Aug 31, 2017, relating to OpenAI’s shift from a nonprofit to a for-profit overseen by a nonprofit.
“My testimony is I didn’t read the fine print, just the headline,” said Mr Musk, wearing a dark suit, dark solid tie and white shirt.
At times, Mr Musk expressed frustration with Mr Savitt’s cross-examination.
“Few answers are going to be complete, especially when you cut me off all the time,” Mr Musk said.
April 30’s exchanges echoed a tense cross-examination on April 28, when Mr Savitt pressed Mr Musk about text messages and emails showing that he at times expressed openness to creating a for-profit entity and that Altman kept him apprised of Microsoft’s investments in OpenAI.
Mr Savitt is expected to cross-examine Mr Musk for about an hour on April 30, and a lawyer for Microsoft will also question him.
ChatGPT maker OpenAI, founded in 2015, has evolved from a nonprofit research lab in Brockman’s apartment to a company worth more than US$850 billion that is planning a potential initial public offering.
Mr Musk is seeking US$150 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, one of its largest investors, with proceeds going to OpenAI’s charitable arm. Mr Musk also wants OpenAI to revert to being a nonprofit, with Altman and Brockman removed as officers and Altman removed from its board. Mr Musk’s claims include breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment.
On April 29, jurors in federal court in Oakland, California, saw an email Mr Musk sent to Altman and Brockman in 2017, referring to himself as a “fool” for providing them funding for what he believed was a nonprofit venture.
“I felt like they had not been honest with me,” Mr Musk said under questioning by his lawyer, Steven Molo. “What they really wanted to do was create a for-profit where they had as much shareholder ownership as possible.”
OpenAI has said it created a for-profit entity to allow it to accept private investments to help buy computing power and pay top scientists.
The trial started on April 27 and is expected to last several weeks. The next witnesses after Mr Musk are expected to be his top aide, Jared Birchall, Brockman, and AI safety expert Stuart Russell. REUTERS
