<\/p>\n
Elon Musk arrives for the trial of Musk against\u00a0OpenAI held at Dellums Federal Building in Oakland on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Jessica Christian\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Opening statements in\u00a0Elon Musk\u2019s lawsuit against OpenAI\u2019s leaders began Tuesday in Oakland federal court, kicking off the blockbuster trial<\/a> that may shape the future of artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n \u201cThe defendants in this case stole a charity,\u201d Musk\u2019s attorney Steven Molo said to a packed courtroom. Molo echoed a message by Musk posted on X<\/a> on Monday that alleged the same, while using pejorative nicknames \u201cScam Altman\u201d and \u201cGreg Stockman\u201d to refer to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman.<\/p>\n Molo said OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit for \u201cthe benefit of mankind as a whole\u201d and \u201cunconstrained by the need to generate money,\u201d but argued that the company has become a vehicle for Altman and Brockman to benefit from.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cThey enriched themselves. They made themselves more powerful,\u201d Molo said.<\/p>\n Musk is seeking to oust Altman and Brockman from OpenAI, reverse its transition into a for-profit Public Benefit Corporation that would enable it to go public, and damages upwards of $100 billion, though Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has expressed skepticism over that number. Musk said any monetary damages would fund a nonprofit OpenAI, rather than himself. Musk is alleging breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment.<\/p>\n Boxes of materials are wheeled into the Dellums Federal Building in Oakland on Tuesday for the trial of Elon Musk against OpenAI.<\/p>\n Jessica Christian\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n OpenAI\u2019s lawyer William Savitt said Tuesday that Musk\u2019s claims are without merit and that Musk is seeking to hurt a competitor as his own company SpaceX, which includes xAI, prepares to go public this year.<\/p>\n San Francisco Chronicle Logo<\/p>\n Make us a Preferred Source to get more of our news when you search.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re here because Mr. Musk didn\u2019t get his way. We\u2019re here because Mr. Musk now competes with OpenAI,\u201d Savitt said. \u201cMusk used his funding commitment to bully other members of the OpenAI founding team.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Rather than Musk caring about OpenAI\u2019s nonprofit status or open sourcing its tech, \u201cwhat he cares about is Elon Musk being on top,\u201d as well as beating Google\u2019s DeepMind AI project, Savitt said.<\/p>\n Savitt said the evidence will show Musk\u2019s \u201chypocrisy\u201d and that Musk initially supported a for-profit company and a parallel nonprofit, similar to OpenAI\u2019s current structure. Savitt cited emails that showed Musk\u2019s efforts to make OpenAI a subsidiary of his electric carmaker Tesla. In February 2018, after being rebuffed, Musk left OpenAI\u2019s board and sought to poach OpenAI\u2019s best engineers for his own AI company, which would later become xAI, Savitt said.\u00a0<\/p>\n In earlier remarks, Musk\u2019s lawyer urged the jury to put aside personal animus for the world\u2019s richest man, who was also in court Tuesday.<\/p>\n \u201cThe case isn\u2019t about Elon Musk. It\u2019s about the defendants,\u201d Molo said. Some jury candidates were rejected Monday after expressing disdain for Musk.<\/p>\n Molo went on to trace Musk\u2019s history of entrepreneurship, including the founding of Zip2 in 1995 and PayPal, and his later talks with Altman to set up OpenAI. He detailed billions of dollars of investment from Microsoft, a co-defendent, and the shift of employees from the nonprofit OpenAI to its for-profit subsidiary.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Molo said Altman was caught \u201clying,\u201d leading to his abrupt termination as CEO in 2023. Molo said Microsoft, \u201cpulling the strings,\u201d got Altman reinstated days later. Molo said Microsoft made a \u201cmockery\u201d of OpenAI\u2019s original nonprofit mission to benefit humanity, referencing Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella\u2019s comments to a journalist in 2023<\/a> that it was deeply embedded into OpenAI.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are below them, above them, around them,\u201d Nadella said at the time.<\/p>\n Savitt, OpenAI\u2019s lawyer, said Musk never expressed opposition to Microsoft\u2019s involvement until OpenAI became extremely valuable and became a household name thanks to its ChatGPT chatbot.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s when the sour grapes come in,\u201d Savitt said.<\/p>\n He said that OpenAI\u2019s nonprofit entity retains \u201c100% control\u201d of its for-profit company and is now one of the best-funded nonprofits in the world.\u00a0 Savitt added that 90% of OpenAI\u2019s 770 employees signed a letter supporting Altman\u2019s return after he was fired in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Molo\u2019s statement was interrupted repeatedly by technical audio issues in the courtroom, prompting Judge Gonzalez Rogers to appear to reference the disparity of the court\u2019s tech with the billions of dollars funding AI.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are funded by the federal government,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elon Musk arrives for the trial of Musk against\u00a0OpenAI held at Dellums Federal Building in Oakland on Tuesday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[970,1302,13603,5976,157,370,781],"class_list":{"0":"post-20421","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-openai","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-courts","10":"tag-east-bay","11":"tag-oakland","12":"tag-openai","13":"tag-sam-altman","14":"tag-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n