Musk, Altman Management Styles Come Under Fire at OpenAI Trial

Elon Musk and Sam Altman took blows in court testimony this week over their leadership styles as the jury digs deeper into the OpenAI fight.

As people who worked closely with the two men throughout the startup’s turbulent 11-year history took turns taking oaths in the witness box, jurors heard that Musk lacked the technical competence to oversee the development of artificial intelligence and was also short-tempered.

Altman, meanwhile, faced criticism from former OpenAI board members for perceived lack of honesty and integrity.

These are not new criticisms of two of the world’s leading technology entrepreneurs. But for the jury and judge arbitrating their high-profile disputes, the testimony can play a role in the credibility contest over who wronged whom.

Even U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers acknowledged that the case was more about credibility than a definitive corporate document or legal contract. “This case, like many cases, is limited by who jurors will believe,” he said Thursday.

The trial, which has just completed its second week, revisits OpenAI’s transformation from a puny startup founded in 2015 to benefit humanity to a behemoth now worth almost $1 trillion.

The week began with lawyers questioning Greg Brockman, a trained software engineer who worked with Musk, Altman and others to launch the startup; Then a dramatic disagreement eventually led to a court fight.

As Musk stated in his own statement, he was the one who brought OpenAI’s capital, connections, and vision to serve the public good; but found that it had been stolen by Altman and Brockman and turned into a for-profit business for their own benefit.

But when a power struggle broke out around 2017, OpenAI’s president, Brockman, stated that the “big concern” was that Musk was not an expert in artificial intelligence and “wasn’t going to spend the time needed to get really good at it.”

“Look, he knows rockets, he knows electric cars,” Brockman said. “He didn’t know about AI, and I believe he didn’t either.”

Brockman also described a tense moment during discussions about restructuring OpenAI in August 2017, when Musk said he became angry before taking back a painting he offered as a gift.

“He stood up and started storming around the table,” Brockman said. “I actually thought he was going to hit me. I really thought he was going to physically attack me. Instead he grabbed the painting and started running out of the room.”

Altman took over as head of OpenAI a year after Musk left the board in 2018. He was briefly ousted as chief executive in 2023 and then quickly reinstated.

In her video deposition, Mira Murati, the startup’s onetime chief technology officer, recalled that Musk “created chaos” among senior executives at the company. He also said that Altman “undermined” him and did not always tell the truth.

Murati, who was briefly appointed to serve as interim CEO after OpenAI’s board fired Altman in 2023, said his criticisms of him were mostly “management related.”

“I had an incredibly difficult job to do in a very complex organization,” he testified. “I wanted Sam to lead and lead clearly and not undermine my ability to do my job.”

At the time of his dismissal, the board released a statement saying Altman had been “consistently candid” in his communications about OpenAI’s activities.

Jurors were shown video testimony from two former OpenAI board members who voted in favor of Altman’s dismissal: Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley.

Toner described “a pattern of behavior related to his honesty, candor, and resistance to board oversight.”

McCauley echoed that sentiment, describing “a toxic culture of lies that has kind of led to these crisis events.”

“There were a lot of little interactions that gave me real doubt about whether I could trust what the CEO was telling us,” McCauley said.

Former board members said Altman misled them about the model safety review of the new AI by saying it had been approved when it was not.

The breakup of Musk and Altman’s relationship has put pressure on some at OpenAI, including Shivon Zilis, an advisor in the nonprofit’s early days who served on its board from 2020 to 2023. She is also the mother of Musk’s four children and currently serves as an executive at his brain implant company, Neuralink.

Zilis stated that one of his roles at OpenAI was to “facilitate communication for the good of the many,” a task complicated by the division between Musk and the other co-founders.

“Frankly, they were a little bad at talking to each other sometimes,” he said. “Often there were thorny issues that wouldn’t go over well in the text, or they wanted to make sure Elon hit them while he had a clear head and time to think about it.”

Altman is expected to testify next week before the trial ends on Thursday.

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