Sam Altman and Elon Musk are facing off in a high-stakes trial that could alter the future of OpenAI and its most well-known product, ChatGPT. In 2024, Musk filed a lawsuit accusing OpenAI of abandoning its founding mission of developing AI to benefit humanity and shifting focus to boosting profits instead.

After nearly a month of the hearing that featured testimony from Musk, Altman, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman, former OpenAI board member and mother of several of Musk’s children Shivon Zilis, and a few others, the jury deliberated for a couple of hours before returning with a verdict, deciding to dismiss all charges due to the statute of limitations.

Musk was a cofounder of OpenAI and claims that Altman and Brockman tricked him into giving the company money, only to turn their backs on their original goal. However, OpenAI claimed that “This lawsuit has always been a baseless and jealous bid to derail a competitor” in a bid to boost Musk’s own SpaceX / xAI / X companies that have launched Grok as a competitor to ChatGPT.

In his lawsuit, Musk asked for the removal of Altman and Brockman, and for OpenAI to stop operating as a public benefit corporation.

People to Know

Plaintiff

Elon Musk — plaintiff, OpenAI cofounder and now CEO of rival xAI

Steven Molo — lead counsel for the plaintiff

Jared Birchall — manager of Musk’s family office

Shivon Zilis — former OpenAI board member who shares multiple children with Musk

Defendant

Sam Altman — defendant, CEO of OpenAI 

William Savitt — lead counsel for the defendant

Greg Brockman — president of OpenAI as well as a cofounder 

Ilya Sutskever — former chief scientist at OpenAI and a cofounder

Judge

Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers — aka YGR, trial judge

Here’s all the latest on the trial between Musk and Altman:

• The jury has delivered a unanimous verdict.
• An observer has just been ejected from the court by the US marshals.
• C. Paul Wazzan is the expert called by Musk to determine damages.
• Musk v. Altman proved that AI is led by the wrong people
• Closing time
• “I told you in my opening statement you wouldn’t hear very much from Microsoft, and you haven’t.”
• “I feel like I’m going to miss you all,” Savitt tells the jury.
• Savitt calls out the fact that Musk is abroad with President Trump today.
• Savitt says Musk has “selective amnesia.”
• Behold, the Elon Musk jackass trophy
• Savitt is talking about the statute of limitations.
• Here’s the jackass trophy that the jury didn’t get to see.
• We are back from our break. William Savitt is taking it home for the OpenAI defense.
• Tesla AI is evidence of Musk’s failure, Eddy says.
• “The documents tell the truth here,” Eddy says.
• Eddy suggests that Musk’s donated Teslas were, effectively, bribes.
• Eddy is, wisely, leaning hard on chronology in explaining their defense.
• Sarah Eddy is giving the closing argument for OpenAI.
• Molo is done presenting Musk’s closing argument.
• For all of the very irritating testimony about “the blip,” Molo hasn’t convincingly connected it to his case.
• Molo is now attempting to make a case against Microsoft.
• During our break, the jurors were out of the room, and the lawyers were beefing again.
• We are back on the millions and billions of OpenAI equity that employees have interest in.
• This is kind of choppy.
• Molo is now suggesting that the “crown jewels” of OpenAI are its IP.
• Musk’s early money meant “a great, great deal,” Molo says. Inarguable!
• Molo calls Shivon Zilis, mother of Musk’s children, “the most even-keeled, even-tempered witness at the trial.”
• Ah we are back at the museum store funding the museum.
• Perhaps Mr. Molo is unfamiliar with xAI.
• Fair enough, Mr. Molo.
• I see why Molo is leaning on the spoken testimony.
• Molo is now calling out Altman’s testimony.
• Molo is suggesting that Greg Brockman’s conduct makes him untrustworthy.
• Molo has begun his closing statement for Elon Musk, who is in China.
• YGR is now reading aloud the instructions to the jury.
• The monitor has left the courtroom.
• We are now having a fight about a new, large monitor that has appeared on the Musk table.
• “They didn’t give us page numbers, your honor.”
• Musk left the country with President Trump despite a judge’s orders.
• Microsoft and OpenAI rest.
• In the most boring expert testimony yet, Louis Dudney, a forensic accountant, testified about how those funds were spent.
• The shade we are getting in here is incredible.
• The cross is focusing on Coates’ pay.
• John Coates, OpenAI’s expert witness, is running a demolition derby on Musk’s expert witness.
• Museum gift shop metaphor found dead in a ditch.
• We’re listening to an expert witness, David Hemel, a law professor at NYU.
• During Elon Musk’s all-hands Q&A before departing OpenAI, Achiam said he felt Musk wanted to “race towards AGI.”
• Achiam is running circles around this lawyer on cross, without doing the annoying things other witnesses have done.
• Okay, it’s time for the cross of Achiam.
• “I think he was just upset that he had been challenged,” Achiam said. “This was not friendly.”
• During the all-hands, Musk expressed concerns about what would happen if DeepMind got to AGI first,
• “It was a bit like seeing Bigfoot through Plexiglass,” Achiam says of seeing Elon Musk in the office.
• Ilya Sutskever would get up on tables to give speeches in the early days of OpenAI.
• Achiam talked about the roles of Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever in OpenAI’s early days.
• Josh Achiam described what it was like to work at OpenAI in 2017.
• Achiam started at OpenAI as an intern in the summer of 2017, and became a full-time employee in December.
• Hi my name is Josh Achiam and welcome to “will we see the jackass trophy?”
• Fairly stupid choice by Musk’s lawyers to go after Microsoft’s major decision rights.
• Musk cross. I guess we are now going to have a fight about due diligence.
• “Our due diligence found no conditions related to Elon Musk,” Wetter says.
• Mike Wetter for Microsoft is taking the stand now.
• Scott, who is wearing sneakers and a black crew neck under his blazer, seems quite pleasant on cross.
• We are now getting cross-examination from Musk’s lawyer.
• Microsoft’s CTO Kevin Scott is on the stand.
• Microsoft doesn’t want any of this
• In his testimony, Musk said he never called anyone a jackass.
• Incredible evidence dispute this morning.
• Sam Altman was winning on the stand, but it might not be enough
• About 200 people work on safety at OpenAI.
• The chair of OpenAI’s safety and security committee said they’ve formally delayed its model releases.
• Irritatingly, no one has asked him why he’s called “Zico.”
• Microsoft establishes that OpenAI has other investors…
• We see the Musk “bait and switch” texts again.
• What if we had a drinking game for this trial?
• Musk says, “This is a bait and switch” in a October 2022 text chain.
• Molo is not doing especially impressive lawyering here.
• Molo asked Altman if he’d ever fire himself as CEO of the OpenAI for-profit.
• “The blip” again.
• Well, I do love a long inquiry into the linear nature of time.
• The difference between Musk and Altman on cross is really stark.
• Ronan Farrow’s article is brought up.
• This cross is spicy!
• Mr. Molo is going directly in at Altman: “Do you always tell the truth?”
• “If I knew how difficult and painful this was going to be, I never would have tried,” Altman said.
• We are now talking about Altman’s investments.
• “I had poured the last years of my life, and I was watching it be destroyed,” Altman said.
• “I was in this like fog of war, I didn’t know what was going on,” Altman says of what happened next.
• We are now onto “the Blip.”
• Sam Altman says Elon Musk’s mind games were damaging OpenAI
• OpenAI has raised “approximately $175 billion” in investment, Altman says.
• Altman seems to be getting into his testimony…
• Musk didn’t invest in the OpenAI for-profit because “he was no longer going to invest in any startups he did not control.”
• It looks like Sam Altman discussed the for-profit OpenAI with Elon Musk in detail.
• “Unlike a lot of other meetings with Mr. Musk, this was a good vibes meeting.”
• Now into Shivon Zilis. Altman says he retained her on the board to try to keep friendly relations with Musk.
• “I was annoyed” when Elon Musk tried to recruit talent from OpenAI, Altman said.
• Musk resigned because he had lost confidence in OpenAI “and did not believe we were going to be successful.”
• Musk suspended his quarterly donations in 2017. That left OpenAI in “a very tough position.”
• When it was time to get more capital, Musk was pushing OpenAI to be acquired by Tesla.
• A particularly “hair-raising moment” for Altman was a succession plan from Musk.
• Elon Musk has control issues, Altman says.
• Sam Altman takes the stand in trial against Elon Musk
• OpenAI has called Sam Altman as a witness.
• Taylor says the reason OpenAI Foundation has been able to do more work is the recapitalization.
• Bret Taylor is back on the stand.
• We’ve talked about how this case isn’t just for whatever happens in the court…
• Bret Taylor has been asked to slow down twice.
• “OpenAI is decidedly not profitable,” Taylor said.
• There’s “a lot of tension” between LLMs and what Taylor calls “content companies”…
• Plantiff rests. OpenAI calls its first witness, Bret Taylor of OpenAI Foundation.
• Ilya Sutskever says he was uncomfortable with Musk’s large ownership demand.
• Sutskever’s testimony is kind of a snooze so far.
• Satya Nadella is excused.
• A lot of people contact Satya Nadella about their boards, apparently!
• Microsoft’s lawyer is now back with Nadella.
• We are discovering that Satya Nadella knows very little about the OpenAI nonprofit.
• I can’t speak for the jury but I am very, very sick of hearing about “the blip.”
• “Not consistently candid” press release about Sam Altman’s firing is what Molo is citing as why Nadella should have known why Altman was fired.
• We are arguing now about risk and return.
• “I don’t want to be IBM and OpenAI to be Microsoft.”
• We are on cross, with Steven Molo for Musk.
• Satya Nadella seemed to forget he currently served on the board of a nonprofit.
• What is Copilot?
• During Altman’s ouster, Satya Nadella tried to reassure investors everything would not “crumble.”
• “Below them, above them, around them.”
• “We have each other’s phone numbers,” Nadella says of Musk.
• Nadella tells us that before the OpenAI partnership, Google was its biggest AI competitor.
• Satya Nadella is taking the stand, in a navy suit and a light blue tie with a white shirt.
• Jury is here. We are now finishing a video deposition from Friday about the OAI deal with MSFT.

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  Link :
  https://www.theverge.com/tech/917225/sam-altman-elon-musk-openai-lawsuit