OAKLAND, California — The third day of Elon Musk’s testimony in his high-stakes trial against OpenAI began with a bout of bickering over whether AI could lead to the “extinction” of the human race.
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“This is a real risk, we all could die as a result of artificial intelligence,” Musk’s attorney Steven Molo said in the courtroom, in objection to Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’ attempts to shut down the discussion.
Rogers fired back, reminding Molo to stay focused on the issue on trial: that Musk claims OpenAI CEO Sam Altman betrayed public trust by enriching himself through the artificial intelligence company they founded together in 2015 as a nonprofit venture.
“It’s ironic your client, despite these risks, is creating a company that is in the exact space,” Rogers said. “There are some people who do not want to put the future of humanity in Mr. Musk’s hands … But we’re not going to get into that business.”
Musk’s lawsuit against Altman is the culmination of a yearslong feud that has sometimes led the two former associates to trade public barbs online. Altman was in the room Wednesday and Thursday as Musk testified.
The case, scheduled to run for four weeks, could define the future of OpenAI and its flagship AI model, ChatGPT. Musk demands an estimated $134 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, a co-defendant and one of OpenAI’s top financial backers.
He claims OpenAI benefited from his money, advice, recruiting efforts and connections.
But Altman’s side rebuts the credit he takes, claiming that Musk never fulfilled his $1 billion commitment to the company — which Musk also confirmed in court this week — and that he quit when Altman and fellow co-founders Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever refused to let him control OpenAI or absorb it into his electric car company, Tesla.
Musk, who said Wednesday that he deliberately chose to create OpenAI “as a nonprofit for the public good,” launched his own for-profit AI company, xAI, in 2023. SpaceX, his aerospace company, recently acquired xAI to create a combined private entity worth more than $1.2 trillion.
Meanwhile, OpenAI completed its tumultuous corporate restructuring in October, shifting its capped-profit model to a more traditional for-profit structure. The for-profit arm, which continues to be overseen by a nonprofit foundation, raised $122 billion in its latest funding round that closed last month.
Catch up on NBC News’ trial coverage:
“It was obviously started as a nonprofit in the founding charter. It says it will not be to the financial benefit of any one person,” Musk said as his cross-examination continued Thursday, repeating the grievance at the core of his lawsuit against Altman. “You just can’t steal a charity, and that’s what it comes down to.”
Musk again got snarky with OpenAI’s lawyer Bill Savitt throughout the remainder of his testimony, retorting early on: “Few answers are going to be complete, especially if you cut me off all the time.”
In response to Savitt’s questioning, Musk testified that he has never directed X’s algorithm to deboost OpenAI’s account. Musk bought the social media platform, formerly known as Twitter, in 2022. Grok, the chatbot built by xAI, is heavily integrated into the platform.
When asked whether he has ever used OpenAI technology to develop xAI, Musk admitted to having done so.
“It is standard practice to use other AIs to validate your AI,” Musk said. “It just means you ask another AI questions and validate them against yours.”
Musk noted Wednesday that he didn’t follow through on his original $1 billion promise because he “lost confidence in the team.” Instead, he said, he ended up contributing $38 million.
Musk was also asked in court this week about the Tesla vehicles he had given to several “key people at OpenAI” in 2017.
Musk said Thursday that he gifted the Teslas as “appreciation for the hard work and sacrifice of people at OpenAI, the charity, who had taken salaries much less than if they had worked at a for-profit.” He added that he bought the cars himself at full price.
As his testimony neared its end, Musk was also asked whether he planned to create “a military army of robots.” He responded that xAI does “not make any weapons” and wants to prevent a human-machine war reminiscent of “The Terminator.”
“You see, in the movie, it’s not a good situation,” Musk said, adding that he has no desire to create a worst-case scenario where “AI kills us all.”
