Altman Testifies About ‘Hair-Raising’ OpenAI Chat With Musk (1)

OpenAI’s Sam Altman testified that he was “extremely uncomfortable” with Elon Musk’s insistence that he have complete control over a proposed for-profit subsidiary of the startup back in 2017.

Altman told jurors Tuesday that Musk said he only wanted control of the entity in its early days, but that the billionaire was unwilling to sign a contract to that effect, frustrating fellow co-founders of the artificial intelligence company.

“A particularly hair-raising moment was when my co-founders asked Mr. Musk, ‘If you have control, what happens when you die?’” Altman said. “He said something like, ‘I haven’t thought about ...