OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took the stand on Tuesday to defend his business record in a lawsuit against Elon Musk, rebutting evidence that undermined his leadership at a crucial time for the ChatGPT maker.
Musk, the world’s richest man, is seeking Altman’s ouster from the company’s leadership as part of a civil lawsuit accusing him of disclosing their shared vision for OpenAI. Since its beginnings as a non-profit organization funded primarily by Musk, OpenAI has evolved into a venture capital firm now valued at $852 billion.
In the third week of the trial in federal court in Oakland, Calif., none of the tech giants has emerged as an overly sympathetic character. But no one should lose more than Altman.
Even if Musk loses the case, the trial has invited a review of Altman’s leadership at a critical time for the company and its competition with Musk’s AI company and another rival, Anthropic, formed by a group of seven former leaders of OpenAI. All three companies are moving forward with planned public offerings that are expected to be their largest ever.
Under a barrage of questions from Musk’s lawyer, Altman said he disagreed with the evidence in the case that showed him to be dishonest.
“I believe that I am an honest and trustworthy businessman,” said Altman.
‘It doesn’t look good’: expert
A jury that has already heard about Altman’s character from the ranks of his former allies and opponents will ultimately decide the verdict. But results can vary widely.
“This doesn’t look good for any of them, and I think that’s a bit unfortunate for the AI industry at a time when the public perception of AI is negative and seems to be getting worse,” said Sarah Kreps, director of Cornell University’s Tech Policy Institute.
The lawsuit accuses Altman and his chief lawyer, Greg Brockman, of double-crossing Musk for deviating from the San Francisco company’s founding mission of being a friendly host of revolutionary technology. The case alleges that they switched to money-making mode behind his back. Musk wants an undisclosed amount of money to be paid to fund the philanthropic efforts of OpenAI’s philanthropic arm.
Although Musk, the head of SpaceX, Tesla and dozens of other companies, is well known to the San Francisco Bay Area jury pool, few knew who Altman was before the trial began, even if they were familiar with ChatGPT.
Since the trial began, testimony about Altman’s tumultuous tenure at OpenAI has been the fodder for Internet humor.
Another piece of evidence that inspired many memes was a text exchange between Altman and the company’s CEO, Mira Murati, in 2023 during his temporary ouster as CEO, when Altman asked if things were going well or badly and he replied: “Sam this is terrible.”
Jurors heard from witnesses including former OpenAI board members Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley, who spoke about the decision to fire Altman in 2023 before they were removed from the board of directors when Altman returned to his position.
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In video testimony last week, Toner said the genesis of the decision to fire Altman was when OpenAI founder Ilya Sutskever, a respected AI scientist, tried to confide in him some of his concerns.
“The phrase we used was ‘pattern of behavior,’ so there is no single cause,” Toner said. “The pattern of behavior related to his honesty and candor, his resistance to overseeing the board.”
Sutskever was involved in the failed attempt to fire Altman but later said he regretted his role in the shakeup. In his testimony Monday, Sutskever confirmed that he wrote a 2023 memo to OpenAI’s board alleging that Altman was misbehaving with his superiors and showing a “consistent pattern of lying” that was causing a loss of trust and productivity.
He said he later backed down and signed a letter supporting Altman’s reinstatement to try to prevent the company from being destroyed.
Altman is pitching Musk as he sets out to take control of OpenAI
The trial also poses risks for Musk, who is pursuing an initial public offering this summer for his rocket ship maker, SpaceX, which would make him the world’s first billionaire.
Sutskever testified about his early admiration for Musk as an entrepreneur but said that once they started working together as co-founders, Musk’s pressure to be involved in startups “just got on my nerves.”
OpenAI has dismissed Musk’s allegations as a baseless case of sour grapes aimed at slowing its rapid growth and strengthening Musk’s xAI, which is now part of SpaceX.
Altman and Musk both vyed to be CEO of OpenAI in its early years. In his testimony Tuesday, Altman said he was concerned about Musk’s efforts to gain more control of OpenAI, which aimed to safely build a type of AI that is better than humans called artificial general intelligence.
“Part of the reason we started OpenAI is that we didn’t think AGI could be under the control of any one person, no matter how good their intentions,” Altman said.
He described what he called “a particularly hair-raising moment when my co-founders asked Mr. Musk, well, ‘If you’re in control, what happens when you die?’
Altman said Musk’s response was that perhaps “control of OpenAI should pass to my children.” Altman said he doesn’t feel comfortable with that.
Altman said that Musk was known as “an angry person” and was confident that he would make the right decisions that others did not see but that Musk believed would “end up being right.” Among the pressures on OpenAI are Musk’s repeated attempts to have his car company Tesla take over OpenAI, a proposal that Altman said would be inconsistent with OpenAI’s mission.
Altman testified that OpenAI ended up creating “through hard work, this great charity” and sought to challenge Musk’s argument that Altman had violated the nonprofit’s original mission.
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“Mr. Musk tried to kill it, I think twice,” Altman said, before Musk’s lawyer interrupted Altman’s objection. The judge dismissed the record.
Towards the end of his testimony, Altman said he had thought a lot about Musk during his early involvement with OpenAI, before things turned sour.
“I felt like he abandoned us, he didn’t keep his promises, he put the company in a very difficult place, he put the job at risk, he didn’t care about the things I thought he cared about,” said Altman. “It was very painful for me … to have someone I respected so much not acknowledge that and continue to publicly attack us.”
“When I look back at what we all said in 2015 and what we wanted to accomplish and have accomplished, I think it’s absolutely incredible,” Altman said, calling Musk a “significant contributor” to OpenAI early on.
He pointed out that Musk is leaving OpenAI and the ongoing disputes “with jealousy, as we were more successful, by trying to beat us down as he started the competition.”
