Elon Musk sparred with OpenAI\u2019s attorney under cross examination on the second day of his testimony, as lawyers for both sides zeroed in on his souring relationship with the organization that kicked off the AI race.<\/p>\n
Musk claims OpenAI betrayed its initial nonprofit mission when it changed its corporate structure; OpenAI, for its part, claims Musk\u2019s suit is meant to derail its position as a competitor to his own artificial intelligence company, xAI.<\/p>\n
Musk\u2019s attorney presented previous communications between the billionaire and OpenAI\u2019s leaders, including CEO Sam Altman, aiming to support allegations that the ChatGPT maker misled him. And OpenAI\u2019s attorney, William Savitt grilled Musk on his contributions to the company and whether it was his idea for OpenAI to pursue profits. The exchanges grew tense at times, with Musk being asked by Savitt to stick to \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno\u201d answers.<\/p>\n
Musk will take the stand for a third-straight day on Thursday. OpenAI\u2019s attorneys will finish cross-examination, and Musk\u2019s attorney will then ask a second round of questions.<\/p>\n
The trial comes as OpenAI is planning what could be a blockbuster IPO \u2013 and potentially a cash infusion that could help the company cement its early lead in a global race to dominate AI.<\/p>\n
Much of the early questioning on Wednesday focused on early internal emails between Musk and OpenAI executives including Altman and President Greg Brockman who were present in court, over possible plans to include a for-profit structure.<\/p>\n
Musk said he was fine with a for-profit \u201cas long as it was a subsidiary of the nonprofit.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat you can\u2019t have is the for-profit become the main event, and that\u2019s what we have here,\u201d he told the court.<\/p>\n
Musk was questioned about his direction of the head of his family office, Jared Birchall, to register a for-profit public benefit corporation in 2017 in OpenAI\u2019s name, saying he did so \u201cin case it was needed.\u201d<\/p>\n
In emails presented as evidence, Musk was also shown saying he needs to have control of the proposed corporation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI needed to make sure it would go in the right direction and I was providing almost all the money,\u201d he told the court.<\/p>\n
When the other co-founders expressed concern over such a set up, Musk told the court he believed they had \u201cgone back on what they had previously agreed\u201d and \u201cwhat they really wanted to do is create a for-profit where they had as much shareholder ownership as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
In another email presented as evidence, Musk told the cofounders that he would \u201cno longer fund OpenAI until you make a firm commitment to stay nonprofit.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a fool,\u201d he told the court. \u201cI gave them free funding to create a startup.\u201d<\/p>\n
Microsoft\u2019s involvement in OpenAI\u2019s growth has also been central to Musk\u2019s complaint. OpenAI in 2022 announced a $10 billion investment from Microsoft that valued the company, now with a for profit subsidiary, at $20 billion. It was then, Musk told the court, that he\u2019d \u201clost trust in Altman\u201d and grew concerned that \u201cthey were really trying to steal the charity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musk messaged Altman a link to an article about OpenAI\u2019s valuation in 2022, evidence presented to court showed, and told the court he felt it was \u201ca bait and switch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Altman\u2019s response to Musk\u2019s text from 2022 read \u201cI agree this feels bad. We offered you equity when we established the cap profit, which you didn\u2019t want at the time. We are still very happy to do any time you\u2019d like.\u201d<\/p>\n
Savitt tried to point out inconsistencies between Musk\u2019s statements in court and those on X, his social media site, from whether Tesla was working on artificial general intelligence to how much he actually gave OpenAI. Savitt also pressed Musk, critically, on whether he ever proposed that OpenAI form a for-profit arm, pointing to emails and meeting notes where Musk appeared to say OpenAI needed a for-profit aspect in order to compete against Google.<\/p>\n
Savitt\u2019s line of questioning led to a particularly tense interaction between Musk, Savitt and US District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour questions are not simple. They are designed to trick me, essentially,\u201d Musk told Savitt when responding to \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno\u201d questions. Musk tried to compare his line of questioning to the classic loaded question of \u201chave you stopped beating your wife,\u201d but Rogers cut him off, saying they were \u201cnot going to go there.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his first day of testimony, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman watching across the courtroom, Musk laid out a case that he had the key role in creating OpenAI. The company was meant to benefit all of humanity, with open-source code that would make it the antithesis of companies meant only to benefit their shareholders.<\/p>\n
OpenAI\u2019s creation, Musk said, was borne out of his longstanding concerns about AI and how the technology could be used to harm humans, perhaps even deeply.<\/p>\n
And Musk, known for his sense of drama and sweeping promises in his own business ventures, said his case could also undermine the entire foundation of charitable giving in the United States should he lose.<\/p>\n
OpenAI\u2019s chatbot, ChatGPT, has made it a household name, with CEO Sam Altman among the most famous Big Tech leaders in the world. But Musk, the world\u2019s richest man, is himself a major tech leader. Their clash has pitted two high-profile men with seemingly different visions of artificial intelligence in one of the few places where their money and celebrity hold less power than in global markets, research circles or the media: a courtroom.<\/p>\n
The nine-person jury, selected on Monday, will advise US District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers as she decides whether to apply Musk\u2019s requested remedies, including reversion of OpenAI to its nonprofit structure; the removal of Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman from the board; and $130 billion in damages, to go to OpenAI\u2019s nonprofit foundation.<\/p>\n
Already, Judge Rogers has made clear that she intends to brook no nonsense from the rich, powerful men in her courtroom. Before testimony began Tuesday, she called out both sides for their social media posts on the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of you try to control your propensity to use social media to make things worse outside this courtroom,\u201d she said. \u201cLet\u2019s let this play through. Perhaps you\u2019ve never done that before. This would be a first.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story has been updated with additional information.<\/em><\/p>\n For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at\u00a0CNN.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Elon Musk sparred with OpenAI\u2019s attorney under cross examination on the second day of his testimony, as lawyers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-science","category-us"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3097"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3099,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097\/revisions\/3099"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}