<\/p>\n
Elon Musk arrives for the trial of against OpenAI held at Dellums Federal Building in Oakland on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he said from the witness stand that he shifted from being an enthusiastic supporter of OpenAI to feeling betrayed.<\/p>\n
Jessica Christian\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Elon Musk<\/a> returned to the witness stand Wednesday in Oakland federal court for a second day of testimony in his case against OpenAI,<\/a> detailing his shift from being an enthusiastic supporter of the nonprofit to feeling betrayed. He also clashed repeatedly with OpenAI\u2019s attorney over questions that Musk believed were unfair.<\/p>\n He said his feelings towards OpenAI CEO Sam Altman<\/a> and President Greg Brockman shifted from a \u201cphase one\u201d of support, \u201cphase two\u201d of doubts, and finally \u201cphase three, where I\u2019m sure they\u2019re looting the nonprofit. We\u2019re currently in phase three,\u201d Musk said with a chuckle.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Musk said he was a \u201cfool\u201d for giving OpenAI \u201c$38 million of essentially free funding to create what would become an $800 billion company,\u201d of which he has no equity stake.<\/p>\n In his 2024 lawsuit, Musk alleged breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment, arguing OpenAI abandoned its original nonprofit mission to benefit humanity to pursue financial gain. OpenAI\u2019s lawyer William Savitt argued Tuesday during his opening statement that the nonprofit entity remains in control of the for-profit public benefit corporation and is now one of the most well-funded nonprofits in the world.<\/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 Musk is seeking to oust Altman from OpenAI\u2019s board and upwards of $134 billion in damages, which he said would be used to fund OpenAI\u2019s nonprofit mission.<\/p>\n During cross-examination, Savitt clashed with Musk over questioning. Savitt asked whether Musk had contributed $38 million to OpenAI, rather than the $100 million that he later claimed to have invested on X.<\/a> Musk said he also contributed his reputation to the company and came up with the idea for the name, leading Savitt to ask Musk to respond yes or no to \u201csimple\u201d questions.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cYour questions are not simple. They\u2019re designed to trick me, essentially,\u201d Musk said, adding that he had to elaborate or it would mislead the jury.<\/p>\n He compared Savitt\u2019s questions to asking, \u201chave you stopped beating your wife?\u201d<\/p>\n Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers intervened, leading Musk to answer yes to the $38 million investment amount.<\/p>\n The world\u2019s richest man said his doubts grew and by late 2022, he thought \u201cwait a second, these guys are betraying their promise. They\u2019re breaking the deal.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI started to lose confidence that they were telling me the truth,\u201d Musk said.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n A turning point was co-defendent Microsoft\u2019s investment of billions of dollars into OpenAI, Musk said. On October 23, 2022, Musk texted Altman that he was \u201cdisturbed\u201d to see OpenAI\u2019s valuation of $20 billion in the wake of the Microsoft deal.<\/p>\n Musk called the deal a \u201cbait and switch,\u201d since a nonprofit doesn\u2019t have a valuation. OpenAI had \u201cfor all intents and purposes\u201d become primarily a for-profit company, Musk argued.<\/p>\n Altman responded to Musk by text that \u201cI agree this feels bad,\u201d saying that OpenAI had previously offered equity in the company but Musk hadn\u2019t wanted it at the time. Altman said the company was happy to offer equity in the future.<\/p>\n Musk said it \u201cdidn\u2019t seem to make sense to me\u201d to hold equity in what should be a nonprofit.\u00a0<\/p>\n Musk also testified about his relationship with Shivon Zilis, who was a member of OpenAI\u2019s board between 2020 and 2023 and a potential witness in the case.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n On Tuesday, he called Zilis his \u201cchief of staff\u201d at Musk\u2019s startup Neuralink. On Wednesday, Musk said, \u201cWe live together and she\u2019s the mother of four of my children,\u201d and said her title at Neuralink was more accurately described as \u201csenior advisor.\u201d<\/p>\n Musk said he wasn\u2019t aware of Zilis sharing any sensitive information to him about OpenAI.<\/p>\n Later Wednesday, Savitt cited a 2018 text from Zilis to Musk, asking him whether she should \u201cstay close and friendly\u201d to OpenAI to \u201ckeep info flowing\u201d to him as Musk, which he agreed to. He added that \u201cwe are going to actively try to move three or four people from OpenAI to Tesla\u201d with more joining later without Tesla actively recruiting them. (There are no reports that such job changes occurred in 2018, and OpenAI hired a Tesla software executive last year<\/a>.)<\/p>\n In a separate email exchange with a Neuralink employee while he was still a board member at OpenAI, Musk authorized his startup to approach OpenAI workers about switching jobs to Neuralink. Savitt asked whether Musk had a responsibility as an OpenAI board member to have its best interests in mind. Musk said California labor laws meant that he could not restrict OpenAI employees from changing jobs, and Neuralink had the right to try to hire them. \u201cIt\u2019s a free country,\u201d Musk said.<\/p>\n He said he left OpenAI\u2019s board in 2018 because his obligations to SpaceX and Tesla were too much. \u201cI had to make sure, essentially, that Tesla survived,\u201d Musk said.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Amid intense public interest in the case, multiple attendees have been caught recording and taking pictures inside the courthouse, which is prohibited. A person on Monday was found recording the broadcast in the overflow room, and another woman was admonished by Judge Gonzalez Rogers on Wednesday morning for recording the previous day. The woman said she was dyslexic and hadn\u2019t seen the multiple signs that state recording is banned. Gonzalez Rogers also said someone tried to get footage of Musk outside the courtroom during a break on Wednesday.<\/p>\n For the second day in a row, Gonzalez Rogers threatened to shut down the overflow room if another recording incident occurred. A court staff member also warned the roughly 100 people in the room not to record, saying there were U.S. Marshals present who would confiscate phones and eject those who did so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elon Musk arrives for the trial of against OpenAI held at Dellums Federal Building in Oakland on Tuesday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[970,1302,13603,140,5976,157,370,781,2544],"class_list":{"0":"post-22576","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-elon-musk","12":"tag-oakland","13":"tag-openai","14":"tag-sam-altman","15":"tag-tech","16":"tag-us-and-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22576","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=22576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}