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 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. Elon Musk, his financial manager and Neuralink CEO, Jared Birchall, and OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman have already testified before the jury. Shivon Zilis , a former OpenAI board member who shares four children with Musk, took the stand on Wednesday, and the courtroom also watched former OpenAI CTO Mura Murati’s videotaped deposition. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is scheduled to appear on Monday, May 11th, 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 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 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: Musk v. Altman week two recap. Microsoft was worried OpenAI would run off to Amazon and ‘shit-talk’ Azure Mira Murati’s deposition pulled back the curtain on Sam Altman’s ouster Oh this tack is more effective. Then OpenAI lawyer is going after Columbia… This cross of Schizer is pretty weak. Basically everything Schizer is saying is couched as a hypothetical… We are now hearing from David Schizer, one of Musk’s expert witnesses. We are still listening to McCauley. Tasha McCauley is testifying now in a video deposition. “Do you have any idea how you ended up in this courtroom?” I am having a hard time taking Rosie Campbell seriously. We are now hearing from Rosie Campbell, a former OpenAI employee. OpenAI’s board discussed merging with Anthropic during “the Blip.” Helen Toner is now talking about the board’s decision-making process. YGR is back on the bench. Musk’s biggest loyalist became his biggest liability We are going through the removal of Sam Altman from OpenAI in detail. Toner is relating how Sam Altman’s firing happened. Toner says she found out about ChatGPT by seeing screenshots on Twitter. Making AI models is “more like alchemy than chemistry,” Toner says. We are now looking at Helen Toner’s deposition. Microsoft would like to be excluded from this narrative. “It’s not in my neurons,” Zilis says, instead of “I don’t remember.” Sarah Eddy, an attorney representing OpenAI, got sarcastic with Zilis. Shivon Zilis brainstormed possible scenarios for AI. Musk offered Sam Altman a board seat at Tesla… Shivon’s emails aren’t great for Musk. The big sticking point for Brockman and Sutskever was control. Sam Altman loves exclamation marks. Mira Murati tells the court that she couldn’t trust Sam Altman’s words Zilis’ past emails mentioned in court proceedings include her referencing a potential “conversion to for-profit” for OpenAI. This is getting interesting. Zilis sent Altman a text message of support after his 2023 ouster. Zilis said another concern she had about Altman related to OpenAI’s potential deal with Helion. Also in the spirit of clarifications this morning… Zilis said she had major concerns about OpenAI’s board not being notified in advance of ChatGPT’s release. Zilis said that the fallout from Altman’s 2023 ouster changed her view of OpenAI’s Microsoft deal. When asked how much Musk works per week, Zilis laughed. Musk’s team has called Shivon Zilis. Murati says problems with Altman persisted after he returned to the company. “OpenAI was at catastrophic risk of falling apart” when Altman was fired, Murati says. We are seeing video testimony from Mira Murati’s deposition. We are clearing up “a few inaccuracies from yesterday.” We are taking care of some matters before the jury comes in. Microsoft and OpenAI’s definition of AGI was just revealed. The jurors look as bored as I feel. Brockman steps down. We are looking at the video deposition of Robert Wu. Brockman is telling the truth about considering removing Musk from the board. Every time Molo makes a summary of Brockman’s testimony, Brockman objects to it. We are now fighting about “Either go do something on your own or continue with OpenAI as a non-profit.” One other thing I don’t understand… Molo is trying to reiterate what he did more effectively yesterday. “You had no problems answering your lawyers’ questions,” Molo is practically yelling. Molo asks Brockman if Musk was “being mean” to him. We are back to quibbling. We are now discussing the OpenAI Foundation layoffs. Microsoft is done, bless them. Microsoft is now getting to talk to Brockman. The blip. We are now discussing Shivon Zilis. We are now going through the assorted releases of GPT models. When Musk resigned, he gave a speech to OpenAI’s employees that might have been demoralizing… One observation from Brockman and Sutskever’s emails. We are now recontextualizing more entries from Brockman. There were discussions between Brockman, Altman, and Sutskever about removing Musk from the board. We are back from a break. “I thought he was going to hit me,” Brockman says of Musk. Elon Musk doesn’t love anything he can’t control. Sam Altman discussed an equal equity split… We are now discussing Brockman’s journal. Brockman talks Dota 2. Elon Musk tried to get Bill Gates to donate to OpenAI. First sidebar of the trial. OpenAI had layoffs at Musk’s insistence. Greg Brockman tells the court that while at OpenAI, he and three others worked at Tesla. YGR is on the bench. Google’s AI architect lived rent-free in Elon Musk’s head OpenAI’s president does ‘all the things,’ except answer a question Jury is sent out for the day. We are hearing about the early days of OpenAI. Early worries about Musk came from Ilya Sutskever. Brockman is describing his bromance with Altman. “I do all the things.” Brockman says we are 80 percent of the way to AGI. Open AI’s direct examination of Brockman is pretty sedate so far… aside from Tesla. OpenAI’s lawyers are now getting their shot at Brockman. For real, I think nerds should not testify in court. We are now looking at Brockman’s other financial dealings. We finished with the Microsoft investment pretty quickly. Altman didn’t return after we took our break. We are presently having a fight about purple boxes. We have been doing the same question for perhaps the last five minutes. “Financially what will take me to $1B?” “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.” Greg Brockman’s journal: “it’d be wrong to steal the non-profit from him.” Brockman is not doing himself any favors. Brockman’s cross-examination isn’t as testy as Musk’s, but he’s also pushing back on a lot of questions. Is sending stuff to Sam Teller and Shivon Zilis