Lawyers for Elon Musk, Sam Altman wind down OpenAI trial with testy parting shots | Latest Tech News
OAKLAND, Calif. — Elon Musk’s lead attorney wound down the landmark trial of OpenAI on Thursday with a blistering assault — again questioning the trustworthiness of the tech firm’s CEO Sam Altman — while a lawyer for the company insisted that Musk’s central claims have been baseless.
In his closing arguments, Musk lawyer Steven Molo conjured a vivid state of affairs to strive to drive home allegations that Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman betrayed the firm’s founding contract by placing industrial gain over creating AI for public benefit.
“Imagine that you’re on a hike, and you come upon one of those wooden bridges that you see on a trail and it’s over a gorge,” Molo said inside the federal courtroom. “There’s a river that’s 100 ft below and it appears a little scary, but a girl standing by the entry to the bridge says, ‘Don’t fear, the bridge is constructed on Sam Altman’s model of the reality.’
Sam Altman and OpenAI lawyer William Savitt. AP
“Would you walk across that bridge? I don’t think many people would,” the lawyer added, drawing laughs from trial attendees.
Altman seemed on without emotion, sitting between Brockman and the company’s “Chief Futurist” Joshua Achiam, who memorably testified Wednesday that Musk called him a “jackass” at a company-wide assembly years in the past.
The Tesla CEO, who left OpenAI’s board in 2018, was in Beijing for President Trump’s summit with his Chinese counterpart.
During her closing arguments, OpenAI lawyer Sarah Eddy pushed back on Molo’s assaults and asserted Musk’s three days of testimony last month have been “contradicted” by quite a few witnesses.
“All these witnesses say the same thing,” Eddy said. “No one made a commitment to Mr. Musk. He does not have a charitable trust to enforce.”
Musk — who donated $38 million to OpenAI years before launching his own high-profile artificial intelligence project, xAI — is in search of about $150 billion in damages and a court order unwinding OpenAI’s for-profit standing.
Eddy argued there have been no situations on Musk’s charitable contributions in OpenAI’s early years and circled back to a key episode in both the firm’s historical past and the trial — Altman’s days-long ouster from the group in 2023.
The majority of OpenAI’s staff signed a letter demanding his reinstatement at the time, Eddy said.
Musk is in search of $150 billion in damages and an order that OpenAI unwind its for-profit plans. AP
The closing arguments capped three weeks of proceedings that captivated Silicon Valley and past and featured some of the most important names in tech. Along with Altman, Brockman and Musk, the trial featured testimony from Musk advisor and romantic companion Shivon Zillis, OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Molo gave jurors a journey down reminiscence lane, reminding them that when he requested Altman level clean if he was “completely trustworthy,” the techie gave halting, seemingly uncertain solutions.
Altman answered at the time that he “believed so,” before saying he needed to “amend” his reply to “yes.”
“Who answers questions that way?” Molo said Thursday.
He told the jury that Altman’s trustworthiness was immediately tied to the case, saying, “If you cannot trust him, they cannot win.”
Also talking Thursday was Microsoft’s lead counsel Russell Cohen, who recapped the software program giant’s protection against Musk’s allegations that it abetted OpenAI’s betrayal of its mission.
The trial took on a decidedly personal tone from the start, with Musk testifying in the first week, “This lawsuit is very simple: It is not OK to steal a charity.”
His social media broadsides, including calling the OpenAI CEO “fraud Altman,” drew a rebuke from US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who also told Altman to curb his social media assaults.
At another level in the trial, when Musk started to offer a legal opinion, Rogers interjected: “You’re not a lawyer, Mr. Musk.”
“Well, I’ve technically taken law 101,” the multi-billionaire jokingly replied.
The closing statements capped three weeks of proceedings in an Oakland, Calif., courtroom. REUTERS
Altman addressed Musk’s “steal a charity” line in his testimony, saying Tuesday, “It feels difficult to even wrap my head around that framing.”
Brockman also confronted heavy scrutiny in the trial. Molo ripped him in his closing arguments, saying the pc scientist’s “arrogance” and “lack of decency” are “appalling.”
During a probably embarrassing second in the trial, entries from Brockman’s diary have been displayed. The doc confirmed him musing about changing into a billionaire and changing OpenAI to a for-profit entity, writing in 2017, “Financially what will take me to $1B?”
“He’s really not an idiot,” Brockman wrote of Musk. “His story will correctly be that we weren’t honest with him in the end about still wanting to do the for-profit just without him.”
An attorney who has represented large tech corporations but is just not concerned in the OpenAI go well with said he believes Musk strengthened his case over the course of the trial.
“Musk has more of a case here than previously thought,” said the professional, who attended most of the proceedings. “The first 15 minutes of Altman’s cross-examination were devastating. I’m trying to think of the last time a witness, when asked if they can be trusted, had long pauses before answering.”
Jurors have been set to start deliberations Monday. Their verdict will technically be only advisory, though Rogers has said she is extremely probably to observe it.
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