OpenAI President Testifies Musk Threatened to Hit Him in 2017 Control Dispute

OpenAI president Greg Brockman testified in federal court that he believed Elon Musk was going to hit him during a heated 2017 meeting over control of the artificial intelligence startup. Brockman, a co-founder and defendant in Musk's lawsuit, described the encounter to a jury in Oakland, California.

He said Musk's mood changed abruptly after Brockman rejected a proposal that would have given Musk more say in the company, which Musk had helped found and fund since 2015. "I actually thought he was going to hit me," Brockman said of Musk. The meeting ended shortly afterward with Musk announcing he would start withholding funding from OpenAI.

The testimony emerged during the second week of a month-long trial pitting Musk against OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman. Musk left OpenAI years ago and has watched the company grow into one of the world's most valuable enterprises after the launch of ChatGPT.

Before Musk's departure, Brockman said Musk sought greater control and attempted to "butter up" both him and co-founder Ilya Sutskever. The organization began as a nonprofit, later added a for-profit arm to raise capital, and last year made the for-profit entity its primary focus.

OpenAI's valuation has reached $852 billion amid rapid growth in its AI models. Musk's lawsuit seeks to undo that transition, arguing it deviates from the company's original mission.

Brockman's appearance was expected to be followed by testimony from former OpenAI board member Shivon Zilis, the mother of four of Musk's children. Brockman said Zilis told him she had given birth to twins but that he learned only later from public reports that Musk was the father.

Zilis left the OpenAI board in March 2023, the same period when Musk launched xAI, a rival AI company developing a chatbot to compete directly with OpenAI's ChatGPT. Before attending Columbia Law School, Savitt drove a New York City cab and played in rock bands.

Savitt clerked for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg after serving on the Second Circuit. He said Ginsburg taught him to reason from first principles and to reserve judgment to spot weaknesses and opportunities. When interviewing young lawyers, Savitt said he looks for curiosity and skepticism.

He advised those who do not follow a traditional path to "invent" their future by identifying what they want to do and pursuing it relentlessly. Blackstone CEO Stephen A. Schwarzman recalled nearly crying after losing the firm's entire equity in its third investment, a mid-1980s deal involving Edgcomb Steel.

" He revamped Blackstone's processes to rigorously debate complex deals, helping build the firm into a $148 billion asset manager and himself into a billionaire now worth $47.4 billion. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has also spoken about missteps, including the troubled rollout of an upgraded model that forced the company to restore access to its prior version.

Altman said the episode provided a lesson about upgrading products used by hundreds of millions of people at once.