(Bloomberg) — OpenAI\u2019s Sam Altman testified that he was \u201cextremely uncomfortable\u201d with Elon Musk\u2019s insistence that he have complete control over a proposed for-profit subsidiary of the startup back in 2017.<\/p>\n
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Altman told jurors Tuesday that Musk said he only wanted control of the entity in its early days, but that the billionaire was unwilling to sign a contract to that effect, frustrating fellow co-founders of the artificial intelligence company.<\/p>\n
\u201cA particularly hair-raising moment was when my co-founders asked Mr. Musk, \u2018If you have control, what happens when you die?\u2019\u201d Altman said. \u201cHe said something like, \u2018I haven\u2019t thought about it a ton, but maybe I should pass it to my children.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t feel comfortable with that,\u201d Altman added.<\/p>\n
The OpenAI chief executive officer took the witness stand in the final days of the high-profile trial. Musk has accused Altman and company president Greg Brockman of seeking to enrich themselves by abandoning the nonprofit\u2019s altruistic mission and converting it into a for-profit business company with billions of dollars in investments from Microsoft Corp.<\/p>\n
Musk previously testified that he started losing confidence in Altman and Brockman during the 2017 negotiations about OpenAI\u2019s future. He was OpenAI\u2019s biggest financial backer at the time, and thought his equity in its for-profit venture should reflect that.<\/p>\n
Musk testified that he gave OpenAI roughly $38 million in the form of quarterly donations and rent payments for its office space \u2014 far less than the $1 billion he initially pledged.<\/p>\n
Altman told jurors on Tuesday that he contributed $3.75 million to the nonprofit when it first started, and then gave \u201ca multiple of that\u201d in equity interests he held to employees in its early days.<\/p>\n
Altman has repeatedly said he doesn\u2019t currently have a direct equity stake in OpenAI. He confirmed in court that he does hold an indirect interest in OpenAI through Y Combinator, which is a startup incubator he ran when he co-founded OpenAI.<\/p>\n
Altman said he and the other co-founders devoted significant time and effort toward launching OpenAI, and he felt frustrated that those efforts were not reflected in Musk\u2019s proposals for the equity split in the for-profit venture.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was totally true that Elon was proposing to put in a lot of money, and Elon had you know a lot of brand value,\u201d Altman said. \u201cBut I really wanted to stand up for Greg and Ilya,\u201d referring to OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, who went on to become its chief scientist for several years.<\/p>\n
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\u201cOne of the most special things about OpenAI has been we have incredible team spirit and teamwork,\u201d Altman told jurors. \u201cAnd I remember in these conversations, I felt that Elon just really deeply didn\u2019t get that and wasn\u2019t valuing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musk departed OpenAI\u2019s board in 2018, and stopped paying rent on its office space in 2020. Altman said Musk\u2019s departure affected OpenAI \u201cup and down\u201d and raised questions about its fundraising capabilities without him on board.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were questions about what this would mean for our funding and what would happen with Mr. Musk\u2019s competitive effort,\u201d Altman said. \u201cMr. Musk is a well-known figure and known to be fairly mercurial and people wondered if he would take a vengeance on us or something.\u201d<\/p>\n
Altman said he remains \u201cgrateful\u201d to Musk for his contributions and guidance during the early days of OpenAI, acknowledging that he was a \u201ccritical contributor.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was someone I respected hugely,\u201d Altman said. \u201cI also wished he would stop what he was doing here \u2014 which, in my opinion, was jealousy \u2014 as we got more and more successful, and trying to beat us down as he started a competitor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musk\u2019s attorney, Steven Molo, pivoted the questioning to Altman\u2019s integrity \u2014 and whether he has a history of being \u201cdeceptive\u201d in business dealings.<\/p>\n
Musk\u2019s team has devoted significant time to revisiting Altman\u2019s brief ouster as CEO of OpenAI in 2023 with other witnesses, including former board members who testified that he was removed from his position due to a \u201cpattern of behavior related to his honesty, candor and resistance to board oversight.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you completely trustworthy?\u201d Molo asked Altman in his very first question on cross-examination.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe so,\u201d Altman replied.<\/p>\n
Molo then asked if the jury should believe him.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve been called deceptive and a liar by people with whom you\u2019ve done business, right?\u201d Molo said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have heard people say that,\u201d Altman said.<\/p>\n
Altman Versus Musk: How the Biggest Feud In Tech Landed in Court<\/p>\n
The stakes at the trial are big for OpenAI and Altman. Musk is seeking tens of billions of dollars in damages, and the unwinding of the ChatGPT maker\u2019s for-profit conversion that was completed in October. He\u2019s also pushing for Altman and Brockman to be removed from their leadership roles.<\/p>\n
OpenAI has argued that Musk\u2019s lawsuit is primarily an attempt to undermine a top competitor to his own AI company, xAI.<\/p>\n
Throughout the trial, witness testimony has repeatedly focused on the management styles and trustworthiness of Musk and Altman, with both coming under fire.<\/p>\n
In video testimony, OpenAI\u2019s one-time chief technology officer, Mira Murati, recalled Musk \u201ccreating chaos\u201d among top executives at the company. She also said Altman \u201cundermined\u201d her and did not always tell the truth.<\/p>\n
Sutskever said he was thinking about concerns with Altman\u2019s leadership for about a year before he and other board members ousted Altman as CEO in 2023. Altman returned five days later after employees protested.<\/p>\n
Altman\u2019s testimony also caps off years of mounting animosity between two tech billionaires who bonded over a shared vision for AI development before falling out over the company\u2019s direction.<\/p>\n
Musk has been unsparing in his criticisms of Altman, attacking not just his leadership at the company but his character. Musk has called Altman a \u201cliar\u201d and a \u201cswindler.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Musk made an unsolicited $97 billion offer to control OpenAI last year, Altman\u2019s rhetoric grew less measured. The OpenAI CEO suggested Musk was simply trying to slow down a competitor and said he didn\u2019t think Musk was \u201ca happy person.\u201d Altman added: \u201cProbably his whole life is from a position of insecurity \u2014 I feel for the guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Updates with additional details from Sam Altman\u2019s testimony)<\/p>\n
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\u00a92026 Bloomberg L.P.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Bloomberg) — OpenAI\u2019s Sam Altman testified that he was \u201cextremely uncomfortable\u201d with Elon Musk\u2019s insistence that he have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[2478,140,2140,157,370],"class_list":{"0":"post-36929","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-openai","8":"tag-bloomberg","9":"tag-elon-musk","10":"tag-greg-brockman","11":"tag-openai","12":"tag-sam-altman"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36929","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=36929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}