{"id":792859,"date":"2026-05-13T06:52:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T06:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/792859\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T06:52:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T06:52:17","slug":"elon-musk-had-hair-raising-idea-of-passing-openai-on-to-his-kids-sam-altman-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/792859\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk Had \u2018Hair-Raising\u2019 Idea of Passing OpenAI On to His Kids, Sam Altman Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sam Altman took to the witness stand to defend his reputation in the Musk v. Altman trial on Tuesday, as Elon Musk\u2019s lawyers peppered the OpenAI<\/a> CEO with hours of questions regarding his alleged history of deceptive behavior<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The cross-examination was a much needed win for Musk, who has so far struggled to make a convincing case. Tuesday\u2019s testimony included several heated exchanges in which the OpenAI CEO had to respond to allegations from former colleagues suggesting he\u2019s untrustworthy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Highlighting this evidence is not only important for Musk winning over a jury, but also for beating OpenAI in the court of public opinion. Days before the trial started, Musk texted OpenAI president Greg Brockman and told him<\/a> that he and Altman would soon \u201cbe the most hated men in America.\u201d<\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s lawsuit accuses Altman of effectively stealing the OpenAI charity, and taking the $38 million Musk donated to the nonprofit organization and using it to create a for-profit business worth more than $850 billion.<\/p>\n

However, there was little evidence on Tuesday to address the gaps in Musk\u2019s legal case. Altman and Sam Teller, Musk\u2019s former chief of staff, testified on Tuesday that they did not recall Musk ever attaching any special conditions to his donations to OpenAI. Additionally, it appears increasingly likely that Musk filed his case too late, years after he made his last donation to OpenAI and developed suspicion that the organization had breached its charitable trust. By then, the statute of limitations had already expired.<\/p>\n

Brockman and his wife, Anna, sat in the gallery alongside OpenAI\u2019s chief futurist, Joshua Achiam. While Altman and Brockman were present to watch Musk on the witness stand, Musk did not stay for Altman\u2019s testimony. (Flight records suggest<\/a> he was traveling to the Washington, DC, area on Tuesday to fly to China with President Donald Trump.)<\/p>\n

Before fielding questions from Musk\u2019s lawyers, Altman had the chance to tell his side of the story, answering gentle questions from OpenAI\u2019s lawyers. Wearing a purple tie, Altman painted himself as an entrepreneur and investor who\u2019s always been fascinated by, and concerned about, the power of artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

Altman testified that Musk has long been obsessed with controlling OpenAI. He recalled \u201ca particularly hair-raising moment\u201d when Musk suggested that control of OpenAI should pass to his children if Musk were to die. \u201cWe didn\u2019t feel comfortable with that,\u201d Altman said. Altman also suggested that Musk\u2019s attempt in 2018 to start an AI unit within Tesla\u2014and offering him the chance to run it\u2014felt like a \u201cvague, lightweight threat\u201d that Musk would effectively crush OpenAI with or without him.<\/p>\n

Bombarding Altman<\/p>\n

Steven Molo, Musk\u2019s lawyer, wasted no time in his cross-examination, asking Altman: \u201cAre you completely trustworthy?\u201d as his first question. Altman responded that he believes so, and then Molo immediately asked whether the jury should trust the testimony he just gave. Altman responded, \u201cThat\u2019s up to them. I\u2019m not going to tell the jury what to think.\u201d Here\u2019s the heated exchange that followed, as best as WIRED could capture it:<\/p>\n

Molo:<\/strong> Do you always tell the truth?<\/p>\n

Altman:<\/strong> I’m sure there is some time in my life where I have not.<\/p>\n

Molo:<\/strong> Do you tell lies to advance your business interests?<\/p>\n

Altman:<\/strong> No.<\/p>\n

Molo:<\/strong> Have you misled people with whom you do business?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sam Altman took to the witness stand to defend his reputation in the Musk v. Altman trial on…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":792860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[738,64,66,66585,314338,305,923,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-792859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-business","tag-elon-musk","tag-model-behavior","tag-musk-v-altman-trial","tag-openai","tag-sam-altman","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}