“I was a fool to provide them with free funding to launch a startup,” Musk told the jury. He said that when he co-founded OpenAI with Altman and Brockman in 2015, he was donating to a nonprofit developing AI for the benefit of humanity, not to make executives rich. “I gave them $38 million of essentially free funding, which they used to build an $800 billion company,” he said.
Musk is asking the court to remove Altman and Brockman from their roles and relieve them restructuring Which allowed OpenAI to operate a profitable subsidiary. The test results could fuel OpenAI’s race toward an IPO at a $1 trillion valuation. Meanwhile, XAI is expected to go public in early June as a part of Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, with a target valuation of $1.75 trillion.
This week’s testimony revolved around a central question of the trial: Why is Musk suing OpenAI. Musk argued that he was trying to save OpenAI’s mission of safely developing AI by restoring the company to its original non-profit structure. OpenAI’s attorney, William Savitt, who once represented Musk and his electric-car company Tesla, countered that Musk “never committed to making OpenAI non-profitable” and was instead suing to undermine his rival.
Who is the manager of AI security?
During his direct examination earlier in the week, Musk portrayed himself as a longtime supporter of AI safety. He said he co-founded OpenAI to create a “counterbalance to Google”, which was leading the AI race at the time. He said that when he asked Google co-founder Larry Page what would happen if AI tried to eliminate humanity, Page told him, “It will be fine as long as artificial intelligence survives.”
“The worst case scenario is that Terminator A situation where AI kills us all,” Musk later told the jury.
Savitt stood up at the lectern and argued that Musk was not a “warlord of security and regulation.” As he cross-examined Musk in his fast, surgical cadence, Savitt pointed out that XAI had sued the state of Colorado in April over an AI law designed to prevent algorithmic discrimination.
