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Elon Musk has taken the stand at a high-stakes trial over the future of OpenAI, casting his lawsuit against the ChatGPT maker as a defence of charitable giving.<\/p>\n
The world\u2019s richest person is suing OpenAI, its cofounder and chief executive officer, Sam Altman, and its president, Greg Brockman, and said on the stand on Tuesday that they betrayed him and the public by abandoning OpenAI\u2019s mission to be a benevolent steward of AI for humanity and transforming the nonprofit into a profit-seeking juggernaut.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n \u201cIf we make it OK to loot a charity, the entire foundation of charitable giving in America will be destroyed,\u201d Musk testified on the first day of the trial.\u00a0\u201cThat\u2019s my concern.\u201d<\/p>\n Musk, who founded carmaker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX, also said he is committed to serving the public by working 80- to 100-hour weeks and generally not taking vacations. \u201cI like working and solving problems that make people\u2019s lives better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Before Musk began testifying, Bill Savitt, a lawyer for OpenAI and Altman, told jurors during his opening statement\u00a0it was Musk who saw dollar signs as he helped finance OpenAI\u2019s early growth and pushed it to become a for-profit business, one he might eventually\u00a0lead as CEO.<\/p>\n Savitt said Musk wanted \u201cthe keys to the kingdom\u201d and sued only after he failed, and then in 2023 started his own AI business, xAI, now part of SpaceX.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat he cares about is Elon Musk being on top,\u201d Savitt said in his opening statement. \u201cWe are here because Mr Musk didn\u2019t get his way.\u201d<\/p>\n OpenAI\u2019s lawyer also framed OpenAI\u2019s March 2019 creation of a for-profit entity as critical to letting it buy computing power and pay top scientists to stay competitive with Google\u2019s DeepMind AI lab.<\/p>\n Musk\u2019s lawyer, Steven Molo, told jurors in his opening statement that it was the OpenAI defendants who were greedy for money, as OpenAI began drawing investors, including Microsoft.<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a vehicle for people to get rich,\u201d\u00a0Molo said.<\/p>\n Musk is seeking $150bn in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, one of its largest investors, with proceeds going to OpenAI\u2019s charitable arm.<\/p>\n He also wants OpenAI to\u00a0revert to a nonprofit, with Altman and Brockman removed as officers and Altman removed from its board. Musk\u2019s claims include breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment.<\/p>\n Before jurors were seated, United States District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers admonished Musk after OpenAI lawyers complained about his posts on X on Monday, in which he assailed Altman as \u201cScam Altman\u201d and accused him of stealing a charity.<\/p>\n Rogers said she was loath to issue a gag order, but urged Musk to \u201ctry to control your propensity to use social media to make things work outside the courtroom \u2026 Perhaps you\u2019ve never done that before.\u201d<\/p>\n Musk agreed to minimise his social media activity, as did Altman. Both are expected to testify at trial, as is Microsoft chief Satya Nadella.<\/p>\n The trial could offer a window into some of the egos and personalities that shaped OpenAI as it evolved from a nonprofit research lab in Brockman\u2019s apartment to a company worth more than $850bn.<\/p>\n It also risks complicating OpenAI\u2019s plans for a potential\u00a0initial public offering\u00a0by casting doubt on its leadership, and could intensify Americans\u2019 fears about AI technology more broadly.<\/p>\n OpenAI was cofounded by Musk and Altman in 2015 with a goal of developing AI to benefit humanity and fend off rivals such as Google.<\/p>\n Musk testified that he has \u201chad extreme concerns about AI for a very long time\u201d, and focused more intently on it after meetings with former US President Barack Obama and Google didn\u2019t address AI\u2019s risks.<\/p>\n \u201cI was very close friends with Larry Page at Google,\u201d Musk testified, referring to Google\u2019s cofounder. \u201cWe would talk for many hours about AI safety. At a certain point, it was clear to me Larry Page was not sufficiently caring about AI \u2026 We had to have a counterpoint against Google.\u201d<\/p>\n Savitt, in his opening statement, said AI safety wasn\u2019t a priority for Musk and that Musk denigrated OpenAI employees who focused on it. \u201cJackasses is what he called them,\u201d Savitt said.<\/p>\n Musk has said he provided about $38m to OpenAI for its original mission, only to see OpenAI create a for-profit entity 13 months after he left its board.<\/p>\n Musk\u2019s lawyer, Molo, said a major turning point for Musk came when Microsoft invested $10bn in OpenAI in January 2023. \u201cIt violated every commitment [the defendants] made, not just to Elon, but to the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Russell Cohen, a lawyer for Microsoft, said in his opening statement that the company didn\u2019t do anything wrong and has been \u201ca responsible partner every step of the way\u201d.<\/p>\n Musk\u2019s xAI trails far behind OpenAI in usage. He has\u00a0folded\u00a0that business into SpaceX, whose own potential IPO this year could be\u00a0the largest ever.<\/p>\n Last fall, OpenAI overhauled its structure again to become a public benefit corporation, in which the nonprofit and other investors, including Microsoft, hold stakes. The nonprofit holds a 26 percent stake, plus warrants if OpenAI hits certain valuation targets.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Elon Musk has taken the stand at a high-stakes trial over the future of OpenAI, casting his lawsuit against the ChatGPT maker as a defence of charitable giving. The world\u2019s richest person is suing OpenAI, its cofounder and chief executive officer, Sam Altman, and its president, Greg Brockman, and said on the stand on Tuesday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-canada-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
Lawyers dispute importance of AI safety to Musk<\/h2>\n
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