Ilya Sutskever testified on Monday that his stake in OpenAI is now worth about $7 billion.<\/p>\n
Sutskever, one of the most influential researchers in artificial intelligence and a central figure in Sam Altman\u2019s brief ouster from OpenAI in 2023, appeared in a California courtroom during the third week of Elon Musk\u2019s lawsuit against the company and its leadership.<\/p>\n
During his testimony, Sutskever said he had spent roughly a year collecting evidence for OpenAI\u2019s board that he believed showed a \u201cconsistent pattern of lying\u201d by CEO Sam Altman. He said the concerns included Altman \u201cundermining and pitting executives against one another,\u201d conduct that Sutskever argued was \u201cnot conducive to any grand goal,\u201d including the safe development of artificial general intelligence.<\/p>\n
The testimony revisited one of the defining corporate crises of the AI era. In November 2023, OpenAI\u2019s board abruptly fired Altman, triggering chaos across the company and the wider technology industry. Within days, employees threatened mass resignations, investors revolted and Microsoft offered to absorb Altman and other OpenAI staff into a new subsidiary.<\/p>\n
Sutskever acknowledged that he later reversed course because he feared the company would collapse. \u201cI felt that, had I not done this, the company would be destroyed,\u201d he testified.<\/p>\n
The hearing also underscored how dramatically OpenAI\u2019s value has surged since the crisis. Sutskever said his holdings in the company were worth approximately $5 billion in November 2025 and around $7 billion today. <\/p>\n
Sutskever\u2019s testimony came as Musk presses claims that OpenAI abandoned its original nonprofit mission in pursuit of commercial gain. Musk, who co-founded OpenAI and left its board in 2018, is seeking $150 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, arguing that the company shifted away from its original commitment to develop AI for the benefit of humanity.<\/p>\n
Sutskever\u2019s account offered new detail about the internal tensions that preceded Altman\u2019s firing. He testified that he had prepared a 52-page document outlining concerns about Altman\u2019s behavior at the request of OpenAI\u2019s board. He also confirmed that he had discussed removing Altman with then-chief technology officer Mira Murati after the pair had spoken about his leadership \u201cfor a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet despite helping orchestrate Altman\u2019s removal, Sutskever described himself as largely detached from the public fallout that followed. He testified that he intentionally avoided the internet during the weekend after the board vote and initially did not know about Microsoft\u2019s contingency plans or the employee revolt inside OpenAI.<\/p>\n
The testimony also revealed how close OpenAI may have come to a radically different future. Sutskever confirmed that following Altman\u2019s brief ouster, OpenAI\u2019s remaining board members discussed a proposal under which rival AI company Anthropic would merge with OpenAI and assume leadership of the organization. Sutskever said he was \u201cnot excited\u201d about such a merger.<\/p>\n
Since leaving OpenAI in 2024, Sutskever has launched Safe Superintelligence, an AI company focused on developing safe advanced intelligence systems. The startup was last valued at $32 billion after raising more than $3 billion in funding and maintains a significant presence in Israel, including offices in Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n
Closing arguments in the case are expected later this week, with Altman scheduled to testify as soon as Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ilya Sutskever testified on Monday that his stake in OpenAI is now worth about $7 billion. Sutskever, one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,289,290,18,19,17,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-480548","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-technology"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116560633969550621","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}