Oakland: Elon Musk testified for over seven hours across three days in a trial in Oakland, California, concerning OpenAI’s future, framing his lawsuit as a defense of charitable giving and AI safety.
Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has sued OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman, alleging they abandoned the company’s original nonprofit mission in favour of commercial interests.
Musk repeatedly described OpenAI as a “charity,” claiming it was intended to serve humanity rather than individual profit. He testified that he personally founded the idea, name, initial funding, and key recruitment, including hiring top researcher Ilya Sutskever, and argued the organisation would not exist without his contributions. He also said his connections helped secure support from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
On AI safety, Musk claimed Google co-founder Larry Page dismissed concerns about existential risks, allegedly calling him a “speciesist” for prioritising humans over AI, which Musk said motivated the creation of OpenAI as an open-source nonprofit.
Musk further alleged that Microsoft’s $10 billion involvement felt like a “bait and switch,” and said an offer to buy OpenAI stock felt “like a bribe.” He also defended using other AI systems to train his xAI company, calling it standard practice, while stating for-profit firms can still be socially beneficial.
The trial also highlighted tensions over AI extinction risks, with Musk warning, “We all could die,” though the court limited related testimony.
