In his second day testifying at a closely watched trial over his claims that OpenAI betrayed its altruistic mission in pursuit of profit, the world’s richest person was put on the defensive about how much he supported the startup since its founding.
He had several heated exchanges with
Savitt repeatedly posed what he described as “simple” yes or no questions to Musk, to which Musk would reply that they could not be answered so easily.
‘Trick Me’
“Your questions are not simple,” Musk said at one point. “They are designed to trick me, essentially.”
In the lawsuit he filed in 2024, Musk alleged that
OpenAI and Altman have accused Musk of harassment and say the real goal of the lawsuit is to undercut competition with his own startup that he co-founded in 2023, xAI.
Savitt pressed Musk on how much money he had actually contributed to OpenAI in its early years. Musk had been making quarterly donations and paid the rent on an office building for OpenAI, before he said he “lost confidence” in its leadership.
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During that time, Musk and OpenAI made different representations about the scope of his financial support for the nonprofit that he co-founded with Altman, Brockman and
When announcing its launch in 2015, the nonprofit said Musk committed to eventually donating as much as $1 billion to its mission to develop artificial intelligence for the “benefit of humanity.” In a post on X in 2023, Musk wrote that he had donated $100 million.
‘Did You?’
“At the end of it, you didn’t contribute a billion dollars to OpenAI, did you?” Savitt asked Musk.
Musk replied that he had been growing concerned with the direction of OpenAI around 2017, and started losing trust in the team. Savitt interjected.
“My question to you was simple,” he said, repeating it.
Musk sidestepped again, and said he contributed his reputation, his ideas and other assets that had non-monetary value: “Without me, it would not exist.”
US District Judge
“My question was: You didn’t contribute anywhere near $1 billion to OpenAI, yes or no?” Savitt said.
$38 Million
“In strict monetary terms, I contributed $38 million,” Musk said.
The two have been courtroom rivals before. Savitt, one of the country’s leading corporate litigators, represented
The stakes in the Oakland trial are high — maybe even existential — for OpenAI because of what Musk is seeking: As much as $134 billion in damages and removal of Altman and Brockman from their leadership roles, as well as the unwinding of OpenAI’s for-profit conversion that was completed in October.
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Much of Musk’s testimony so far has been about his falling out with OpenAI’s leaders as they explored strategies to line up sufficient funding to compete with
In 2017, he and the other OpenAI co-founders were considering creating a for-profit subsidiary to support research. They contemplated giving Musk a majority interest in the subsidiary, and virtually unequivocal control over its operations.
He would have had the power to appoint four seats to a 12-member board, while Altman, Brockman and Sutskever would have each received one seat. Musk told jurors the intention was for his majority interest to quickly dilute over time, as more investors were recruited.
‘Final Straw’
But Musk said the “final straw” in his rift with the co-founders came when they seemed to turn on him and voice concerns about the proposal, which never came to fruition.
“They had gone back on what they had agreed on previously,” Musk said. “I felt this was somewhat disingenuous and what they really wanted to do was create a for-profit where they had as much shareholder ownership as possible.”
Savitt showed jurors a 2017 email exchange between Musk, Sutskever, Brockman and a few others at OpenAI about these discussions. In the email, Musk expressed a need to “change course” to keep up with business demands.
In that same message thread, Musk offered to give free Teslas to Sutskever and others at OpenAI.
‘Full Price’
“To be fair, I paid full price for the Teslas,” the longtime chief executive officer of the electric car maker said to laughter in the courtroom. “I don’t get a discount or anything.”
Five years after he left OpenAI’s board in 2018, Musk founded xAI as a for-profit company. It was recently acquired by
OpenAI is also poised for an IPO as its valuation approaches $1 trillion.
Musk told jurors that OpenAI was established as a nonprofit because he was concerned about the safety of AI and ensuring that the future of the technology would not be controlled solely by companies like Google.
‘Some Safety Risk’
Savitt asked Musk on Wednesday whether he considered it to be a safety risk for an AI company to operate as a for-profit. Musk said he believes it “creates some safety risk.”
“So xAI suffers from that safety risk?” Savitt asked.
“Yes,” Musk replied.
Musk repeated throughout his testimony that he was not against the idea of a for-profit AI company, but stated his objection to turning a nonprofit into a for-profit enterprise.
“That’s having your cake and eating it too,” he said.
Savitt posed a number of questions about Musk’s competing loyalties as both an OpenAI board member and his roles at Tesla and
The lawyer suggested during questioning that despite Musk’s fiduciary duties to OpenAI, in 2017 he was actually attempting to hire top researchers away from the nonprofit to his other companies.
Recruited Scientist
Savitt pointed out that Musk helped recruit OpenAI scientist
“I believe it’s a free world,” Musk said in response. “People should have the right to work where they want to work.”
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To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Peter Blumberg, Andrew Pollack
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