During the first week of the landmark trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI, Musk claimed he was deceived into bankrolling the company by CEO Sam Altman and president Greg Brockman, reports Todayinfo.
Musk argued in court that he had been misled, warning that artificial intelligence (AI) could destroy humanity. In a surprising turn, he also confessed that his own AI company, xAI, which makes the chatbot Grok, uses OpenAI’s models to train its own systems.
“I was a fool who provided them free funding to create a startup,” Musk told the jury. “I gave them $38 million of essentially free funding, which they then used to create what would become an $800 billion company.”
Musk is asking the court to remove Altman and Brockman from their roles and to unwind the restructuring that allowed OpenAI to operate a for-profit subsidiary. The outcome of the trial could significantly impact OpenAI's plans for an IPO.
The central question of the trial is Musk's motivation for suing. Musk claims he is trying to save OpenAI’s mission to develop AI safely by restoring its original nonprofit structure. OpenAI’s lawyer countered that Musk was suing to undermine his competitor.
Musk painted himself as a longtime advocate of AI safety, recalling a conversation with Google cofounder Larry Page. According to Musk, Page said it would “be fine as long as artificial intelligence survives,” even if it wiped out humanity.
“The worst-case scenario is a Terminator situation where AI kills us all,” Musk later told the jury.
However, as the lawyers entered a heated debate about who was the true guardian of AI safety, the judge intervened, stating sharply, “This is not a trial on whether or not artificial intelligence has damaged humanity.”
