Musk Takes Stand Against OpenAI

The legal conflict in San Francisco Bay is widely seen as a battle of egos pitting the world’s richest person against a startup Musk once backed that now lags behind the burgeoning artificial intelligence industry.

At the heart of the lawsuit is Musk’s accusation that Altman pushed OpenAI to become a profit-seeking juggernaut that sought to dethrone companies like Google, Apple and Microsoft and betrayed its nonprofit mission.

“If a ruling is passed that effectively recognizes looting of a charity, the entire basis of charitable giving in America will be destroyed — that’s my concern,” Musk told the stand after being called as the trial’s first witness.

Musk traced his interest in OpenAI to his belief that tech powerhouse Google doesn’t care about AI security.

He told the court that he supported the project in the spirit of being a non-profit initiative that makes the well-being of society a top priority, with every technology developed being made open source.

“I didn’t want to pave the way to hell with good intentions,” Musk said of his OpenAI vision. “I didn’t want to fund OpenAI to make safe AI and then find out it was actually making unsafe AI.”

Musk also said he was instrumental in hiring key people, including Ilya Sutskver, who was then a senior AI engineer at Google and went on to play a key role in developing new technology at the lab.

The world’s richest man also said he first contacted AI chipmaker Nvidia and tech giant Microsoft to provide crucial technology, opening doors that would not have been open to OpenAI’s other then-little-known co-founders.

– ‘Everything to attack’ –

Altman and Musk, along with a small group of others, founded OpenAI in 2015, promising a nonprofit laboratory whose technology would “belong to the world.”

Musk, who will continue his testimony Wednesday, invested at least $38 million before leaving the project in 2018, and the OpenAI Foundation launched its commercial subsidiary a year later.

Microsoft then began investing and increased its commitment to $13 billion; this stake is currently worth approximately $135 billion.

OpenAI’s lead attorney, William Savitt, said in his opening statement that the company had no choice but to open to outside investors, given the high costs of artificial intelligence, and that in any case, OpenAI’s nonprofit arm “retains control of the organization.”

Savitt added that Musk, who regrets leaving the project, “will do whatever he can to attack OpenAI.”

OpenAI has become an AI superpower valued at $852 billion since its launch and is preparing for a high-profile IPO in 2022 on the back of ChatGPT chatbot, which is taking the world by storm.

Musk eventually founded his own lab, xAI, and merged it with SpaceX in February. SpaceX is valued at $1.25 trillion and its IPO, expected to take place in June, is expected to be the largest IPO in history.

– ‘Scam Altman’ –

Moments before opening statements, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers asked Musk and Altman, sitting with their attorneys in federal court in Oakland, to keep social media posts to a minimum during the hearing.

In a series of messages amplified on the X platform he owns on Monday, Musk sarcastically called the OpenAI chief “Craud Altman.”

Guided by the advisory jury’s findings, Judge Gonzalez Rogers will rule by the end of May on whether OpenAI kept its promise to Musk or whether it rode its way to victory through clever use of technology.

Musk’s lawsuit calls for OpenAI to be forced to return to a fully nonprofit organization, as well as the ouster of co-founders Altman and the startup’s president, Greg Brockman.

Claiming compensation of up to $134 billion, Musk promised to give up any personal interest and direct the award to the OpenAI non-profit organization.