{"id":953630,"date":"2026-05-11T23:41:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T23:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/953630\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T23:41:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T23:41:15","slug":"a-consistent-pattern-of-lying-musk-v-openai-trial-exposes-what-insiders-think-of-sam-altman-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/953630\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A consistent pattern of lying\u2019: Musk v OpenAI trial exposes what insiders think of Sam Altman | California"},"content":{"rendered":"

OpenAI, despite its name, is usually extremely secretive about its operations. It promotes a carefully crafted image to the world. Over the course of Elon Musk\u2019s case against the startup and its CEO Sam Altman<\/a>, however, the artificial intelligence firm has been forced to publicly contend with some of the messiest parts of its rise to power in public.<\/p>\n

The Musk v OpenAI trial<\/a>, which on Monday entered its third week, has featured a who\u2019s who of Silicon Valley testifying about OpenAI\u2019s past and its CEO\u2019s contentious leadership. Musk\u2019s attorneys have used former executives, private text messages, diary entries<\/a> and internal email exchanges to portray Altman as untrustworthy. Altman, who denies Musk\u2019s allegations, will take the stand in the coming days. OpenAI has likewise issued denials.<\/p>\n

Although Musk\u2019s case hinges on accusations that OpenAI<\/a> and Altman broke a founding agreement by shifting the company from a nonprofit to a for-profit structure, the trial has often appeared to be more of a public relations battle than a debate over corporate governance. The history of internal drama at OpenAI, which includes a five-day saga in 2023 when Altman was effectively fired then rehired, has provided plenty of ammunition for that fight.<\/p>\n

Altman\u2019s leadership and trustworthiness have long been a subject of scrutiny in the tech industry and have been well chronicled in numerous profiles and books on OpenAI \u2013 including a recent New Yorker article<\/a> that included other tech figures suggesting Altman showed deceptive tendencies. The trial has exposed even more details about OpenAI\u2019s fractious corporate past than previously documented, as well as confirmed previously reported incidents through testimony under oath.<\/p>\n

Altman\u2019s former allies call him untrustworthy<\/p>\n

In court last week, jurors heard video testimony from Mira Murati, OpenAI\u2019s former chief technical officer, once a very close associate of Altman, in which she accused him of \u201ccreating chaos\u201d at the company. Murati, who left OpenAI in 2024, testified that Altman had a pattern of \u201csaying one thing to one person and completely the opposite to another person\u201d.<\/p>\n

The court also viewed text messages from Altman to Murati from 2023, during a brief period when OpenAI\u2019s board ousted him as CEO after accusing him of being misleading in his conduct. Before he was reinstated five days later amid an internal power struggle, Altman texted Murati a series of questions about how the board was weighing his fate. She pointed to a very different future than the one that would come to pass, one in which Altman was cast out for good.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you indicate directionally good or bad?\u201d Altman texted Murati about his prospects.<\/p>\n

\u201cDirectionally very bad,\u201d Murati responded.<\/p>\n

\u201cOk,\u201d Altman replied.<\/p>\n

Murati was one of several witnesses who testified about Altman\u2019s personal and professional conduct. Former board member Helen Toner, who backed Altman\u2019s ouster<\/a>, told the court in a video deposition that there was a \u201cpattern of behavior related to his honesty and candor\u201d that led to Altman\u2019s removal. Natasha McCauley, another former OpenAI board member, alleged in her deposition that Altman caused \u201crepeated crisis events\u201d through his leadership.<\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s lawyers on Monday also called OpenAI co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever to the stand to testify. Sutskever, who was another member of the board that ousted Altman and left OpenAI in 2024, stated that he had held concerns about Altman\u2019s running of the company and truthfulness.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou told the board that Altman \u2018exhibits a consistent pattern of lying, undermining his execs and pitting his execs against one another\u2019,\u201d Musk\u2019s lawyer Steven Molo asked Sutskever.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d Sutskever responded.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was clearly your view at that time,\u201d Molo asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d Sutskever replied.<\/p>\n

\u2018Amateur city\u2019: Microsoft\u2019s CEO criticizes OpenAI\u2019s board on the stand<\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s attorney also questioned Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Monday about the 2023 OpenAI blowup and Altman, with Nadella giving his own perspective on the chaotic attempt at driving Altman away \u2013 an event that OpenAI employees would later refer to as \u201cthe blip\u201d. Microsoft at the time was OpenAI\u2019s largest investor by a large margin.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever I\u2019ve asked explicitly why Sam was fired, they never gave me, that I remember, a specific reason,\u201d Nadella responded. \u201cI never got clarity from anyone on that,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Under questioning from Microsoft\u2019s own lawyer, Nadella criticized the OpenAI board that tried to remove Altman for creating instability and its poor communication.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was sort of amateur-city as far as I\u2019m concerned,\u201d Nadella testified, adding, \u201cI was very worried that the employees were going to leave en masse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s own mess<\/p>\n

OpenAI and Altman have denied all of Musk\u2019s allegations and argued that his case is part of a pattern of harassment motivated by personal jealousy of OpenAI\u2019s success. The jury has also heard testimony about the Tesla CEO\u2019s own erratic behavior. OpenAI\u2019s president Greg Brockman claimed last week that Musk became irate and \u201cstormed around the table\u201d at a meeting shortly before the billionaire left the company in 2018.<\/p>\n

OpenAI\u2019s attorneys alleged in a filing that Musk reached out to Brockman to settle the case two days before the trial, then became threatening when Brockman refused to meet his demands.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America. If you insist, so it will be,\u201d Musk texted Brockman two days before the trial began, according to a court filing.<\/p>\n

Musk is seeking the removal of Altman and Brockman, as well as $134bn to be redistributed to OpenAI\u2019s nonprofit and the undoing of its for-profit structure. The trial\u2019s closing arguments are set to take place on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OpenAI, despite its name, is usually extremely secretive about its operations. It promotes a carefully crafted image to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":953631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3163],"tags":[323,1942,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-953630","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-technology","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116558593409971995","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=953630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/953631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=953630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=953630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=953630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}