More quickly than expected—something especially unusual when talking about legal processes—it advances without brakes. Jury selection took place on Monday and opening speeches from both parties were expected on Tuesday, the first official day of the case in the Oakland courts. But the matter is moving so quickly that one of the juiciest main witnesses has already come out to testify: the plaintiff himself, Elon Musk.
At noon on Tuesday, in the Californian room, Musk spoke for a couple of hours about the founding history of OpenAI and his role in it. Above all, he has laid out a clear vision. “It is not okay to steal from a non-profit company,” was one of his first phrases, which left no doubt as to where his speech was going to go. Because it is around that concept that the entire case revolves around. Musk argues that, when in 2015 he decided to invest in the seed of OpenAI, a pioneer in the development of artificial intelligence, he did so in an entity that went beyond profit and sought the common good. , now OpenAI’s new companion, the giant Microsoft, to demand that it regain its philanthropic spirit. And, incidentally, that they compensate him with 150,000 million dollars (around 128,000 million euros), which he assures that he will donate to charities.
In opening statements, lawyers for defendant OpenAI () have stated that the entire complaint is based on Musk, who was involved in the company’s origins, “failing to get his way” with the company and that all of this is nothing more than “a harassment lawsuit.” So Musk’s own lawyers have played their main card and called him to testify. The richest man in the world has talked about his career, outside and inside OpenAI, where, and that he worked on its entire process, from obtaining financing to hiring staff. He has also put into grand words his repeated idea of how his interests go beyond money and are focused on the good of humanity through his ideas and business ventures.
All in order to maintain that same discourse: that OpenAI must return to operating “for the benefit of humanity”, as it said in its complaint two years ago and as it maintains that it has always wanted. However, there are emails from 2015 and 2017—he left the company in 2018—that show how he agreed with Brockman, co-founder and current president of the technology company, that OpenAI went from being a non-profit company to being profitable. Now, he assures that he intended it to have “a small benefit.”
—in fact, he wants him to stop being the head of OpenAI—and he has shown himself to be the great global technological savior. The head of SpaceX has assured that he has information on generative artificial intelligence, its uses and its future, since he believes that AI will soon surpass the technical capabilities of humans. Instead, he believes Altman is not being careful enough about the big risks of this technology. “I have extreme concerns about AI,” he stated, as reported by . He has painted a black and white picture because: either it is good for humanity or it is destructive: “It could kill us all. We don’t want to be harmed.” Terminator”.
He plays big, as is characteristic of him. He has tried to show that the case goes beyond OpenAI itself, and that this is a landmark judgment that will set the tone for numerous charities and also technology companies. Hence, he assured that if Altman, 41, won the game, “he would give free rein to the looting of every charity organization in the United States,” as explained by the newspaper, another of the media present in the room. “The consequences of this case go far beyond me or all of us here. The entire foundation of philanthropy in the United States would be destroyed.”
Musk will finish his testimony on Wednesday, and then Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will call Jared Birchall, an executive at xAi and Neuralink and manager of Musk’s assets, to the stand.
It remains to be seen what Altman and Brockman will say on the stand, but everything indicates that the story will be diametrically opposite to the one painted by Musk. Other important witnesses will also tell their versions, such as the executive president of Microsoft, Satya Nadella; the former executive of Neuralink (Musk’s neurotechnology company) and part of the board of OpenAI, in addition to , Shivon Zilis; Mira Murati, former CTO of OpenAI; or robotics engineer Tasha McCauley, who was part of the company’s board and participated in the brief attempt to depose.
Among Musk’s main arguments is that, if the OpenAI model is not reversed and it is transformed into a charitable entity as it was in its origins, the same could happen with almost any charitable company. However, experts point out that this is not so simple, and that the case does not have to be replicated in other companies, and that in fact just turning around OpenAI’s business structure would be complex and an unusual mandate for a court.
The jury, made up of nine people chosen by Judge Rogers (who will hand down the final sentence), will have a lot to think about in these four weeks. If Musk wins, he could obtain those $150 billion, which it is not clear to what causes he would allocate, and would seem to have a much freer path to develop. On the other hand, if Altman emerges victorious, it would be a boost for his business model in general and for his company in particular, which is valued at 730,000 million dollars (about 623,000 million euros) and.
