In February 2018, Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, sent an email to Satya Nadella, the chief executive of Microsoft. Elon Musk was leaving the young artificial intelligence lab, Mr. Altman wrote, and it was looking for investors.<\/p>\n
After helping to create OpenAI as a nonprofit, Mr. Musk tussled with Mr. Altman over the lab\u2019s direction. Now that he was leaving and taking his cash with him, Mr. Altman hoped to raise huge amounts of money. \u201cWe are planning to raise a significant amount of capital for a for-profit subsidiary to develop super capable A.I. computers,\u201d Mr. Altman told Mr. Nadella.<\/p>\n
A year later, Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI\u2019s new for-profit venture<\/a>.<\/p>\n That investment has become one of the key points in Mr. Musk\u2019s lawsuit against OpenAI. He claims that after OpenAI took the money \u2014 and an additional $12 billion from Microsoft over the next few years \u2014 it betrayed its founding mission to be a nonprofit dedicated to the creation of A.I. that is safe for the world.<\/p>\n Mr. Musk is asking for $150 billion in damages, Mr. Altman\u2019s removal from OpenAI\u2019s board of directors and an unwinding of the shift that OpenAI made last year to become a for-profit company.<\/p>\n Several months after suing OpenAI in 2024<\/a>, Mr. Musk amended the suit to include Microsoft. He accused Microsoft of aiding and abetting OpenAI as the lab abandoned its founding contract as a nonprofit.<\/p>\n On Monday, Mr. Nadella took the witness stand to start the third week of a blockbuster trial in a federal court in Oakland, Calif. It was the final day that Mr. Musk\u2019s side presented its case, and OpenAI is expected to follow in the next few days with closely watched testimony from Mr. Altman.<\/p>\n Mr. Nadella said that even though OpenAI had gone on to enormous success after Microsoft\u2019s investment, he did not think that the venture violated the original mission of the nonprofit. Nor did he believe Microsoft played a role in breaking OpenAI\u2019s founding contract as a nonprofit.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has always been my view that the nonprofit approved the creation of the for-profit so that they could pursue the mission,\u201d Mr. Nadella said.<\/p>\n As the chief executive of OpenAI\u2019s biggest investor, Mr. Nadella had behind-the-scenes insight into the lab as it quickly expanded from a small research group into one of the most influential tech companies in the world. As OpenAI grew and Microsoft added to its investment, he said, he never heard from Mr. Musk about his objections, even though \u201cwe have each other\u2019s phone numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n In the first two weeks of the trial, Microsoft\u2019s lawyers implied that Microsoft should not have been drawn into the legal squabble between Mr. Musk and Mr. Altman. But Mr. Musk\u2019s lawyers, led by the experienced litigator Steven Molo, tried to portray Mr. Nadella as an unseen influence backing Mr. Altman after OpenAI\u2019s board temporarily fired him a few days before Thanksgiving in 2023<\/a>.<\/p>\n Through texts and emails admitted as evidence, Mr. Molo showed that Mr. Nadella had played a role in Mr. Altman\u2019s efforts to push his way back into OpenAI after just five days.<\/p>\n When Mr. Altman asked Mr. Nadella if he would approve of a new board of directors that included former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers, Mr. Nadella responded with a text saying: \u201cLet me call Larry first.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Nadella called the OpenAI board\u2019s decision to remove Mr. Altman \u201camateur hour, as far as I\u2019m concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n During more than an hour of questioning, Mr. Molo repeatedly tried to show that Microsoft had significant control over OpenAI. He cited emails in which Mr. Nadella told Microsoft that it should have full rights to OpenAI\u2019s intellectual property, and he pointed to an interview in which Mr. Nadella said Microsoft surrounded OpenAI.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are below them, above them, around them,\u201d he told the tech journalist Kara Swisher.<\/p>\n Mr. Nadella said that was just a technical description, because OpenAI\u2019s technologies were built and deployed through various Microsoft technologies.<\/p>\n After Mr. Nadella, Ilya Sutskever, an OpenAI co-founder and its former chief scientist, took the stand. Dr. Sutskever was among the board members who removed Mr. Altman before Mr. Altman fought his way back into the company.<\/p>\n Dr. Sutskever said he had voted to remove Mr. Altman because the OpenAI chief executive was not completely candid with other executives and board members. This, he said, created an environment that was not conducive to achieving the company\u2019s goals, including the pursuit of artificial general intelligence, or A.G.I., essentially a machine that can do anything the human brain can do.<\/p>\n But after Mr. Altman was fired, Dr. Sutskever had second thoughts, and worried that Mr. Altman\u2019s removal might destroy the company. \u201cI worked really hard to create this company, and I cared very much about it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Dr. Sutskever added that he had never made a promise to Mr. Musk that OpenAI would remain a nonprofit and that he was not aware of any such promises by Mr. Altman or anyone else at OpenAI.<\/p>\n Dr. Sutskever said that when Mr. Musk left OpenAI in 2018, he told him that the company had a \u201czero percent chance of success\u201d because it wouldn\u2019t be able to pay for the computer power it needed. <\/p>\n \u201cIf you don\u2019t have a big enough computer,\u201d Dr. Sutskever added, then OpenAI\u2019s effort to build A.G.I. \u201cwas not going to work.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Musk\u2019s legal team built its case around a simple concept: \u201cIt is not OK to steal a charity,\u201d as Mr. Musk said during his first day on the stand<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mr. Molo compared today\u2019s OpenAI to a museum store that had taken over the museum. \u201cA museum store can\u2019t loot the muse, steal all the Picassos and use them to turn a profit,\u201d he told the jury.<\/p>\n That straightforward message could resonate with the nine-person jury that will decide whether Mr. Altman and OpenAI are liable for the suit\u2019s claims, said Anupam Chander, a professor of law and technology at Georgetown Law School.<\/p>\n