{"id":36366,"date":"2026-05-12T17:28:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T17:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/36366\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T17:28:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T17:28:28","slug":"altman-goes-on-offensive-in-landmark-openai-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/36366\/","title":{"rendered":"Altman goes on offensive in landmark OpenAI trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

OAKLAND, Calif. \u2014 OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman hit back at Elon Musk\u2019s claims that he \u201cstole\u201d OpenAI when it was a charity and steered the company away<\/a> from its non-profit mission \u2013 claiming that Musk himself was busy vying to control OpenAI in the first years after it was founded.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Taking the witness stand for the first time in the landmark trial over OpenAI\u2019s future, Altman on Tuesday recounted one \u201chair raising\u201d moment during OpenAI\u2019s early days \u2013 when several OpenAI co-founders asked Musk what would happen to the company if Musk died and he had control of the company.<\/p>\n

\u201cControl of OpenAI should pass to my children,\u201d was Musk\u2019s response, Altman told the packed courtroom.\u00a0<\/p>\n

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman arriving in Oakland federal court. via REUTERS<\/p>\n

Altman said that anecdote and Musk\u2019s seemingly lax views on AI safety made him \u201cextremely uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

OpenAI lawyer William Savitt asked Altman directly not long after he took the stand how he feels about Musk\u2019s accusation that he \u201cstole a charity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels difficult to even wrap my head around that framing,\u201d said Altman, who appeared in Oakland federal court looking relaxed and wearing a dark suit and grey tie. \u201cIt does not fit with my conception of stealing a charity.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Altman also took some politely worded digs at Musk \u2013 for instance, Altman described a \u201cmoral boost\u201d at the company when Musk became less involved with OpenAI. Altman said Musk\u2019s demands to know what workers were contributing to the company on a short term basis was out of step with the research they were pursuing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The trial, \u200cin its third week, has featured a clash \u200bof tech titans that could alter the future of OpenAI and its leadership.<\/p>\n

Musk is targeting Altman for removal from OpenAI in a federal lawsuit that claims the company violated its charitable mission. Musk is seeking $180 billion<\/a> in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, pledging to donate any proceeds from a court victory to OpenAI\u2019s charitable arm. He is also asking the court to restore OpenAI\u2019s nonprofit status and to remove Altman and Brockman from their roles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tesla CEO arriving in Oakland federal court for the lawsuit he brought against OpenAI and Sam Altman and others. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The showdown has gripped Silicon Valley and beyond, with witness testimony at \u200btimes displaying the personalities and inner workings of the upper echelons of the tech world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The San Francisco-based maker of hit AI tool ChatGPT has raised hundreds of billions of dollars from \u200blarge tech companies and investors and could hold a potential trillion-dollar IPO.<\/p>\n

Altman used his testimony to highlight OpenAI\u2019s current safety efforts, defend himself from the character attacks that former OpenAI head of technology Mira Murati lodged against him, as well as Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For instance, Murati said in taped testimony played in court that Altman created an environment where OpenAI executives were pitted against each other<\/a>, creating \u201cchaos\u201d in a way that \u201cundermined\u201d her ability to do her job.<\/p>\n

Sam Altman listening to court testimony in an Oakland federal courtroom. REUTERS<\/p>\n

\u201cMy concern was about Sam saying one thing to one person and completely the opposite to another person,\u201d Murati said.<\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s lawsuit alleges Altman \u2060and OpenAI manipulated him into funding the nonprofit with $38 million, \u200bbefore it abandoned its charitable mission to benefit humanity \u200band instead become a for-profit corporation that enriched Altman and others.\u00a0<\/p>\n

OpenAI has argued in court that Musk knew about and at times supported the for-profit plan. The company said Musk walked away from OpenAI after the other co-founders denied his proposals to have majority control.<\/p>\n

Former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever testified on Monday that he spent about a year \u200cgathering \u2060evidence for the company\u2019s board demonstrating Altman\u2019s\u00a0 \u201cconsistent pattern of lying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Musk in court said that he was a \u201cfool\u201d to trust Sam Altman with the future of OpenAI \u2013 \u201cI was a fool who provided them free funding to create a startup,\u201d Musk said. \u201cI gave them $38 million of essentially free funding to create what would become an $800 billion company.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OAKLAND, Calif. \u2014 OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman hit back at Elon Musk\u2019s claims that he \u201cstole\u201d OpenAI…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[25,309,140,157,370,781,11580],"class_list":["post-36366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-openai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-business","tag-elon-musk","tag-openai","tag-sam-altman","tag-tech","tag-trials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36366","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=36366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}