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<\/p>\nAbout five hours into Elon Musk\u2019s testimony, I typed the following sentence into my notes: \u201cI have never been more sympathetic to Sam Altman in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musk\u2019s direct testimony was an improvement over yesterday \u2014 even if his lawyer kept asking leading questions to cue him in how to answer. But that memory was immediately obliterated by an absolutely miserable cross-examination. For hours, Musk refused to answer yes or no questions with yes or no, occasionally \u201cforgot\u201d things he\u2019d testified to in the morning, and scolded defense lawyer William Savitt. I watched a few jury members glance at each other. During one testy exchange, one woman was rubbing her head. Me too, babe.<\/p>\n
Even the judge, who at times prompted Musk to answer \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno,\u201d was having a bad time. \u201cHe was at times difficult,\u201d said Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers after Musk after the jury left the room. (At one point, when she\u2019d cut off his argumentative answer, she got the biggest laugh of the day.) \u201cPart of management from my perspective is just to get through testimony.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t yell at people,\u201d Musk said.<\/p>\n
Musk spent a lot of yesterday painting this heroic picture of himself, and this morning, near the end of his direct examination, said, \u201cI don\u2019t lose my temper,\u201d and \u201cI don\u2019t yell at people.\u201d He said he might have called someone a \u201cjackass,\u201d but only in the spirit of saying something like, \u201cdon\u2019t be a jackass.\u201d<\/p>\n
Immediately afterward, Savitt baited him into being petty, irritating, and generally hard to deal with. At one point, we all watched Musk lose his temper. He spent hours quibbling over simple questions. Again and again, Savitt referred back to Musk\u2019s deposition, where he\u2019d answered questions slightly differently, calling Musk\u2019s accounts into question. Even if the average juror didn\u2019t think he was lying, he was certainly inconsistent.<\/p>\n
Savitt\u2019s cross-examination left the distinct impression that Musk quit his quarterly payments to OpenAI because he wasn\u2019t going to get full control of the company, then tried to kneecap it and fold it into Tesla. Initially, Musk wanted four board seats and 51 percent of the shares. The other cofounders would get three seats, together, to be voted on by shareholders (including other employees). Though Musk said that the eventual plan was to expand to 12 seats, it was obvious that Musk had full control on the initial board of seven.<\/p>\n
When Musk didn\u2019t get what he wanted, he pulled the plug on his funding commitment and hired Andrej Karpathy, OpenAI\u2019s second-best engineer, to Tesla in 2017. Despite his fiduciary duty to OpenAI as a board member, he did not try to get Karpathy to stay at OpenAI when he said he heard Karpathy wanted to leave. (\u201cI think people should have a right to work where they want to work,\u201d Musk said on the stand.)<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my and Andrej\u2019s opinion, Tesla is the only path that could even hope to hold a candle to Google.\u201d<\/p>\n
By 2018, Musk was saying that OpenAI had no path forward with its current structure, declaring it was on \u201ca path of certain failure\u201d in emails to Ilya Sutskever and Greg Brockman. His proposed solution was to merge Tesla and OpenAI. \u201cIn my and Andrej\u2019s opinion, Tesla is the only path that could even hope to hold a candle to Google,\u201d Musk said. The plan never came to fruition, and Musk resigned from OpenAI\u2019s board that year.<\/p>\n
As early as 2016, Musk had his own concerns about OpenAI as a nonprofit. In an email to a colleague at Neuralink, he wrote \u201cDeepmind is moving very fast. I am concerned that OpenAI is not on a path to catch up. Setting it up as non-profit might, in hindsight, have been the wrong move. Sense of urgency is not as high.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about this, Musk said he was just speculating. Savitt said, \u201cThose are your words, yes or no?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou mostly do unfair questions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musk replied, \u201cThis is a hypothetical.\u201d<\/p>\n
Savitt said, \u201cSo you thought it might have been a wrong move? That\u2019s what you said?\u201d<\/p>\n
Getting Musk to put any of that on the record was intensely difficult. He refused repeatedly to answer questions like whether he knew cutting off OpenAI donations would create financial pressure, or whether he\u2019d asked Karpathy to stay at OpenAI. He accused Savitt of asking questions that were \u201cdesigned to trick me,\u201d and we got multiple versions of this:<\/p>\n
Musk: You mostly do unfair questions.<\/p>\n
Savitt: I am trying to put the questions as fairly as I can. I am doing my best.<\/p>\n
Musk: That\u2019s not true.<\/p>\n
Musk was trying to make this as painful as possible for Savitt, but he also made it as painful as possible for everyone else, including the jury. Watching him simply refuse to answer questions during cross he\u2019d easily answered during direct was annoying. Watching him refuse to admit he understood the nature of linear time \u2014 and therefore the fact that he was still a director of OpenAI\u2019s board before he resigned in 2018 \u2014 was infuriating. It made him look dishonest.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d lost trust in Altman and I was concerned they were really trying to steal the charity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musk\u2019s basic, oft-repeated story during this week\u2019s testimony has been that OpenAI is \u201cstealing a charity\u201d and \u201clooting a nonprofit.\u201d He maintains that he was all right with some limited for-profit activity, but not anything that would overshadow OpenAI\u2019s nonprofit work and constitute \u201cthe tail wagging the dog\u201d \u2014 another phrase he reached for, over and over, like a security blanket. In direct testimony, he painted himself as a trusting \u201cfool\u201d who had believed the wily promises of Sam Altman and his cohort: \u201cI gave them $38 million of essentially free funding, which they used to create an $800 billion for-profit company,\u201d he lamented. His own lawyer\u2019s questioning wrapped up with Musk being purportedly blindsided by a multibillion-dollar deal with Microsoft.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d lost trust in Altman and I was concerned they were really trying to steal the charity,\u201d Musk said. \u201cIt turned out to be true.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI said I didn\u2019t look closely! I read the headline!\u201d<\/p>\n
On cross-examination, Musk would barely even explain how much he bothered to learn about OpenAI\u2019s operations before suing over them a few years later. When OpenAI proposed a for-profit arm around 2018, he got an email outlining the proposed corporate structure. On the stand, he said he\u2019d only read the very first section of it, which said that contributors should consider the investments as donations that may have no return. \u201cI read the highlighted box with \u2018important warning,\u2019\u201d Musk said.<\/p>\n
Savitt asked Musk if he\u2019d raised any objection to the structure then, when he\u2019d received the documents. Musk said that he didn\u2019t read beyond that first box.<\/p>\n
Musk: I didn\u2019t read the fine print. We\u2019re going into the fine print of this document.<\/p>\n
Savitt: It\u2019s a four-page document.<\/p>\n
Musk then said he hadn\u2019t read beyond taking this in the \u201cspirit of a donation.\u201d And then we got the deposition, where Musk said, \u201cI don\u2019t think I read this term sheet\u2026 I\u2019m not sure I actually read this term sheet\u2026 I did not closely look at this term sheet.\u201d Savitt pointed out that nowhere in the deposition did Musk say he\u2019d read the first paragraph and Musk, raising his voice and effectively undermining his claims from the morning that he doesn\u2019t lose his temper (lol) or yell at people (lmao), said, \u201cI said I didn\u2019t look closely! I read the headline!\u201d<\/p>\n
Imagine having to deal with this man as your cofounder. I think I would sooner open a vein.<\/p>\n
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