Live updates from Elon Musk and Sam Altman’s court battle over the future of OpenAI
Sam Altman and Elon Musk are facing off in a high-stakes trial that could alter the future of Open AI and its most well-known product, Chat GPT. In 2024, Musk filed a lawsuit accusing Open AI of abandoning its founding mission of developing AI to benefit humanity and shifting focus to boosting profits instead. Elon Musk took the stand on April 28th as the first witness called, portraying his interest in founding Open AI as an effort to help save humanity across three days of testimony, before his financial manager and Neuralink CEO, Jared Birchall, took the stand. Week two of the trial is underway, with professor Stuart Russell and OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman taking the stand on Monday, as the proceedings also added a live audio stream on YouTube. On Tuesday, Brockman’s testimony continued, with Shivon Zilis, a former OpenAI board member who shares four children with Musk, up next. It’s possible that audio of her testimony will not be available on the stream, with lawyers citing threats against her and her children. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is scheduled to appear on Monday, with OpenAI cofounder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever lined up to testify after that. 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 says 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 is asking for the removal of Altman and Brockman, and for OpenAI to stop operating as a public benefit corporation. Musk has also demanded that OpenAI’s nonprofit receive up to $150 billion in damages he’s asking for if he wins the case. People to Know Plaintiff Elon Musk — plaintiff, OpenAI cofounder and now CEO of rival xAI Steven Molo — lead counsel for plaintiff Jared Birchall — manager of Musk’s family