Musk v. Altman live updates: Sam Altman testifies in trial that could determine OpenAI's future

Testimony from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever highlighted competing narratives Monday in the legal battle between Elon Musk and OpenAI, as jurors heard from key witnesses in federal court.

Testimony from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever highlighted competing narratives Monday in the legal battle between Elon Musk and OpenAI, as jurors heard from key witnesses in federal court.

Musk is suing Microsoft for aiding and abetting in a breach of charitable trust, as part of a broader case centered on OpenAI's structure and mission. Nadella took the stand early Monday morning, having been seen pacing in the hallways before his testimony.

"From the OpenAI perspective, the testimony of Mr. Nadella was compelling, candid, straightforward and told the story, which is that Microsoft was a partner," said William Savitt, an attorney for OpenAI.

Nadella described Microsoft's early investment in OpenAI as a significant risk and framed the relationship as a partnership that helped the company grow. He testified that Musk never raised concerns directly with him, saying, "We have each other's phone numbers."

The Microsoft CEO also addressed the brief removal and reinstatement of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in 2023, a pivotal moment referenced frequently during the trial.

"After Sam Altman was fired and reinstated Nadella, Nadella was in close communication with Mr. Altman and with others at OpenAI, and it was instrumental in his reinstatement and in choosing a new board for the nonprofit," said Marc Toberoff, an attorney for Musk.

Nadella denied demanding Altman's reinstatement, instead characterizing Microsoft's role as an effort to stabilize OpenAI.

He testified that the company sought clarity from the board while also preparing contingency plans to hire Altman and other OpenAI staff if necessary.

Jurors also heard from Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI's co-founder and former chief scientist, who offered insight into the company's early days and internal dynamics.

Sutskever testified that Musk pushed him outside his comfort zone but said there was never a promise that OpenAI would remain a nonprofit organization.

"What you heard him say is that there were never any promises made that could form the charitable trust that Mr. Musk says existed," Savitt said.

Sutskever also addressed his role in Altman's temporary ouster, describing it as an urgent move driven by concerns about leadership.

"I simply care," said Sutskever on the witness stand. "I didn't want it to be destroyed," as he explained his decision and concerns that Altman's behavior was not conducive to maintaining a safe environment for artificial intelligence development.

He testified that he had concerns about Altman's leadership for about a year before the decision and described the situation as a "Hail Mary."

Sutskever's testimony also underscored his long-standing belief in OpenAI's mission. He said he once declined a $6 million annual salary at Google to join OpenAI and estimated his current stake in the company at about $7 billion.

The case has drawn a sharp contrast between Musk's argument, summarized in court as "It's not OK to steal a charity," and Sutskever's one-liner today: "The mission of OpenAI is larger than the structure." With testimony from Nadella and Sutskever complete, jurors are now hearing from Bret Taylor, chairman of the board of directors, as well as chairman of the OpenAI Foundation, which is the non-profit governing the for-profit subsidiary.

Up next: Sam Altman, who is anticipated to take the stand as early as Tuesday.

The trial is progressing toward closing arguments, with jurors expected to begin deliberations by Thursday.

Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella is reportedly set to testify Monday in the landmark battle over artificial intelligence in Oakland.

Monday marks the start of week three of testimony.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is also expected to take the stand this week, as defense attorneys lay their case.

Elon Musk is suing OpenAI, accusing the company of abandoning a promise to remain a non-profit. The promise was allegedly tied to Musk's investment in the company.

Altman has accused Musk of trying to hobble the ChatGPT maker for the benefit of his own AI company.

At the heart of the trial pitting Elon Musk against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is a moment when they found common cause on an ever more pressing question: how to protect humanity from the risks of artificial intelligence.

It turned sour, and the jury is charged with settling the ensuing legal dispute between the two Silicon Valley titans.

But the unresolved questions about the dangers of AI have been looming over the federal courthouse in Oakland, California, since the trial began last week. The technology itself is not on trial - the judge has warned lawyers not to get "sidetracked" by questions about its dangers - but witness testimony has touched on concerns around workforce disruptions and the prospect raised by Musk that superhuman AI might one day kill us all.

Musk, the world's richest person, filed the case accusing his fellow OpenAI co-founder of betraying promises to keep the company as a nonprofit. Altman, in turn, accuses Musk of trying to hobble the ChatGPT maker for the benefit of his own AI company.

One witness, AI pioneer Stuart Russell, said that the "winner take all" power struggle over AI's future is itself threatening humanity.

Musk's lawyers brought Russell to the stand as an expert witness, at the rate of $5,000 an hour. The University of California, Berkeley computer scientist listed a host of AI dangers, from racial and gender discrimination to jobs displacement, misinformation and emotional attachments that take some AI chatbot users down a spiral of psychosis.

"Whichever company develops AGI first would have a very big advantage" and an increasingly big lead over everyone else, Russell told the court, using the initials for artificial general intelligence, a term for advanced AI technology that surpasses humans at many tasks.

A judge's warning hasn't kept out talk of AI's dangers

The trial centers on the 2015 birth of OpenAI as a nonprofit startup primarily funded by Musk.

Both Musk and Altman, who has not yet testified in the trial, have said they wanted OpenAI to safely develop AGI for the benefit of humanity and not for any one person's gain or under any one person's control. And both camps allege it's the other guy who was trying to control it.

A jury of nine people selected from the San Francisco Bay Area will get to say which one of them is telling the truth.

Early on, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers warned lawyers, particularly Musk's, not to delve into broader AI concerns that go beyond Musk's claims that OpenAI violated its charitable mission.

"This is not a trial on the safety risks of artificial intelligence. This is not a trial on whether or not AI has damaged humanity," Gonzalez Rogers told lawyers before jurors arrived at the federal courthouse.

Still, Musk managed to skirt that guidance in his testimony last week. Asked to describe artificial general intelligence, Musk said it is when AI becomes "as smart as any human," and added that "we are getting close to that point," and AI will be smarter than any human as soon as next year.

Musk said he has "extreme concerns" about AI and has had them for a long time. Musk said he wanted a "counterpoint" to Google, which at the time had "all the money, all the computers and all the talent" for AI, with no counterbalance.

"I was concerned AI would be a double-edged sword," he said.

Musk and OpenAI each say they are working for humanity's benefit

During his testimony, Musk repeatedly said that he could have founded OpenAI as a for-profit company, just like the other companies he started or took over. "I deliberately chose this," he said, "for the public good."

The judge expressed some skepticism. In comments to lawyers last week before the jury came into the room, Gonzalez Rogers pointed out that Musk, "despite these risks, is creating a company that is in the exact same space," referring to the billionaire's xAI artificial intelligence company, which launched in 2023 and has since merged with Musk's rocket company SpaceX.

OpenAI's side also claims its goals are to benefit the public. OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman, a defendant in Musk's lawsuit along with Altman and their company, said he thought the technology OpenAI was developing was "transformative" - bigger than corporations, corporate structures and bigger than any one individual. It was, he said, "about humanity as a whole."

Brockman testified this week that his No. 1 goal was always the "mission" of OpenAI and it was Musk who sought unilateral control over the company.

Brockman recalled a meeting where at first Musk seemed open to the idea of Altman being OpenAI's CEO. In the end, however, "he said people needed to know he was in charge."

In addition to damages, Musk is seeking Altman's ouster from OpenAI's board. If Musk wins, it could derail OpenAI's plans for an initial public offering of its shares.

Shivon Zilis was an under-the-radar executive at Elon Musk's companies and an OpenAI board member back in 2022. But she was hiding a major secret - Musk was the father of her twins born the year before.

Now, her ties to the Tesla CEO have put her at the center of a courtroom battle between the world's richest man and the company credited with kicking off the AI boom.

Zilis' testimony on Wednesday shed light on the fundamental role she played in the flow of information between Musk and OpenAI during critical time periods. She effectively served as a conduit between Musk and OpenAI's leaders until Musk started his own AI company in 2023, evidence presented in court this week indicated.

Musk, who co-founded and funded OpenAI, sued the company and its leaders saying they deceived him, breached a charitable trust and unjustly enriched themselves when the company expanded from a nonprofit mission to a profit-oriented structure. Zilis was initially a co-plaintiff in the case, though she dropped off at her request before the trial began.

OpenAI has denied Musk's claims, saying he at different times pushed to create a for-profit subsidiary. The company also alleges Musk sued the company because he couldn't gain full control of it, Musk left OpenAI in 2018 and now owns a rival AI company, xAI.

OpenAI alleged that while serving on OpenAI's board, Zilis knew Musk planned to launch a competitor before it was public knowledge.

In text messages to a friend, Zilis wrote she had to resign from the board because Musk's "effort has become well known".

"When the father of your babies starts a competitive effort and will recruit out of OpenAI, there is nothing to be done," Zilis wrote at the time in the messages entered as evidence.

Zilis was instrumental in Musk's dealings with OpenAI from the company's early years, including discussions in 2017 about the potential formation of a for-profit structure to fund AI development. She discussed possible solutions to OpenAI's funding concerns with the company's leadership, Musk and his senior advisors, in emails, messages and meeting notes submitted as evidence. Some of the options included developing a for-profit corporation or having Tesla absorb OpenAI.

OpenAI attorneys tried to show Zilis and Musk discussed creating a for-profit entity for the AI company. Musk's attorneys, on the other hand, attempted to prove Zilis also believed OpenAI violated its original nonprofit mission.

Zilis, under questioning from Musk's attorneys, said that many different possibilities for funding were discussed, including granting Musk having a majority stake in OpenAI. She also said the group never discussed replacing the nonprofit with a for-profit corporation.

After Musk left OpenAI's board and stopped providing funding, Zilis continued acting as a conduit for Musk.

"Do you prefer I stay close and friendly with OpenAI to keep info flowing or begin to disassociate? Trust game is about to get tricky so any guidance for how to do right by you is appreciated," Zilis texted Musk in 2018 after he had left the board.

Musk wanted Zilis to stay "close and friendly" and planned to attempt to recruit several OpenAI staffers to Tesla, he replied.

OpenAI president Greg Brockman testified on Monday that Zilis had said her relationship with Musk was "platonic," so the board allowed her to remain. Brockman added that he was not aware of her personal relationship with Musk until later.

The case could have major ramifications for the AI race if Musk wins and Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers grants the remedies he seeks. That would include forcing OpenAI to revert to a nonprofit structure and revoking Altman and Brockman's board positions.

Zilis testified that her relationship to Musk did not affect her conduct as a board member, saying she had "an allegiance to the best outcome of AI for humanity."

As a board member, Zilis had voted in favor of a $10 billion investment by Microsoft that Musk heavily criticized.

But Zilis testified her views on OpenAI changed after Musk's criticism of the investment, along with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's involvement in restoring Altman as CEO after he was briefly ousted in 2023.

"It just seemed like everything we'd put together from the nonprofit to just retain the mission to make this good for humanity, just somehow had been ripped out or lost its teeth," Zilis said.

Zilis was a prominent venture capitalist before meeting Musk, well-versed in the world of AI long before it became the focus of the tech and business world.

Zilis testified she met Musk in 2016 through her early role in OpenAI as an adviser, after which they had a "one-off" romantic encounter. That turned into a friendship and eventually a job, Zilis said. She went on to hold senior roles at Tesla, xAI and Neuralink. Musk, during his testimony, described Zilis as both a senior adviser and "chief of staff."

Toward the end of 2020, Musk had a different kind of offer: to father her children.

"He in general was encouraging everyone around him to have kids, noticed I had not, and said if that was ever interesting, he would be happy to make a donation," Zilis said. Their twins were born via IVF in 2021.

No one, not even Zilis' dad, knew who the father of her children since she signed a confidentiality agreement. Then in 2022, Business Insider broke the news.

Zilis initially described Musk's role as a donor. But his role evolved into fatherhood, Zilis said, and they had two more children.

Musk called Zilis his "partner" during his testimony last week, and the two live together when traveling, she said this week. He also visits her and the children in Austin, Texas, where she is based.

The-CNN-Wire
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