Elon Musk Accuses Sam Altman's Attorney of Attempting to Mislead During Testimony

Trial Highlights Rupture Between Elon Musk and Sam Altman

Oakland, California - Elon Musk took the stand on Wednesday in a high-stakes trial over his lawsuit alleging OpenAI ditched its mission to build artificial intelligence for the public good. Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, accused a lawyer for OpenAI of trying to trick him during cross-examination.

Musk's testimony came as part of a lawsuit in which he is seeking $150 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft. The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI's co-founder and CEO Sam Altman, along with President Greg Brockman, wooed Musk's donations by promising to build a nonprofit to develop AI responsibly, before pivoting to create a for-profit entity in 2019 to enrich themselves.

OpenAI has argued that Musk is motivated by a compulsion to control the company. The trial highlights the depth of the rupture between Musk and Altman, who once partnered in the quest to develop the fast-growing AI technology. The pair co-founded OpenAI in 2015 to create a benevolent steward of the technology and fend off rivals such as Alphabet's Google.

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Timeline of Key Events

Musk testified that he helped finance OpenAI's early growth and pushed it to become a for-profit business, one he might eventually lead as CEO. OpenAI has said it created a for-profit entity in 2019 to allow it to buy computing power and pay top scientists.

Jurors saw an email 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," 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."

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Musk also testified that Microsoft's investment in OpenAI made him concerned the tech behemoth had "captured" OpenAI. At a $10 billion scale, there's no way Microsoft is giving that as a charitable donation," Musk said under questioning by Molo.

The trial comes as OpenAI prepares for a potential initial public offering that could value it at $1 trillion. Musk is seeking any award to go to OpenAI's charitable arm, with Altman and Brockman removed as officers and Altman removed from the board. His claims include breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment.