Sam Altman Testifies in Musk’s OpenAI Lawsuit

Sam Altman testified Tuesday in the third week of a federal trial in Oakland, California, that Elon Musk wanted complete control of OpenAI and pushed for it to become part of Tesla before leaving the organization he co-founded in 2015. Musk left OpenAI following a power struggle in 2017.

After his departure, Altman attached a for-profit company to OpenAI and raised billions of dollars from investors, a move that helped set off the global artificial intelligence boom with the launch of ChatGPT.

Musk filed the lawsuit in 2024, seeking more than $150 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft. Any damages would be shared with the OpenAI nonprofit. He is also asking the court to remove Altman from OpenAI’s board.

The two men have a combined net worth of more than $670 billion. OpenAI is now valued at about $730 billion. " Molo also asked whether Altman would ever fire himself, given that he serves both as a board member and chief executive.

Altman told the court there was no way he could have built a multitrillion dollar charity without attaching it to a commercial company. "I hope the nonprofit will have trillions of dollars," he said. Musk’s legal team noted that the OpenAI Foundation has very few staff.

I. resilience. In late 2022, Musk sent a text to Altman complaining that Microsoft was preparing to invest $10 billion in OpenAI.

"This is a bait and switch," Musk wrote. Altman offered Musk equity in OpenAI’s for-profit venture on several occasions. Microsoft invested $10 billion. A few months later, Musk launched xAI.

Satya Nadella, Greg Brockman and Shivon Zilis, the mother of four of Musk’s children, testified as witnesses during the first two weeks of the trial. The OpenAI board fired Altman in late 2023 after Thanksgiving, saying he had not been candid with them. The board later agreed to rehire him.