Coverage of the trial begins at about 6 a.m., sometimes earlier, with a trip to the federal courthouse in downtown Oakland, California. Because Silicon Valley tycoons Elon Musk and Sam Altman often appear in court, people line up outside the building before the sun comes up.
A group of young AI security researchers arrived early Tuesday morning with Subway sandwiches. He is among those who believe Mr. Musk’s lawsuit could shift the direction of the global AI race. Mr. Musk argues that OpenAI, which he founded with Mr. Altman and others in 2015, violated the original mission of the artificial intelligence lab by putting commercial interests above the good of humanity.
I’m covering the process with my colleague Mike Isaac, but the court only gave The New York Times one press pass. I’m taking it one day at a time; he’ll get it next time. Even with a pass, I have to arrive at least an hour before the start at 8 am. The idea is that if you have a pass, you can skip the line. But in this sensational trial, even the express entrance to the courthouse is painfully slow. It’s being bogged down by all the lawyers Mr. Musk has hired and the two companies he’s suing: OpenAI and Microsoft, the lab’s main financial and technology partner.
(The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023 for copyright infringement of news content related to AI systems. Both companies denied the claims.)
For security reasons, Mr. Musk and Mr. Altman enter from the basement. However, they still have to go through metal detectors right at the front door of the building. When they arrive, many photographers standing in front of the building suddenly rush to those doors and try to take pictures of the tech moguls through the glass. (Photography is not permitted inside the federal courthouse.)
Once inside the courtroom, Mike and I sit on wooden benches in the gallery next to about 40 other reporters from various shops. One of the advantages of covering a trial near Silicon Valley is that we can use laptops and phones inside the courtroom. In places like Washington, DC, courts often ban the use of electronic devices. This means we can write our stories and blog posts and send them to editors immediately. But we are still not allowed to take photos and we are not allowed to record sound or video.
Cameras are not allowed inside the courtroom, so photographers attempted to take photos through the building’s glass doors.Credit…Jason Henry for The New York Times
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who is presiding over the court, has for two days in a row admonished people to record court proceedings and take pictures from the overflow room, where there are dozens of people who have not been given a seat in the courtroom. If they continue, she said, she will confiscate their equipment and close the raid room.
The figure most eyes focus on is Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man. We all know him from photos, but his ways are more quirky than you might think. He often purses his lips, which you can see in one of the photos captured by Jason Henry, a freelance photographer hired by The Times to stand outside the courthouse. And as Mr. Musk left the courtroom on Tuesday afternoon, he clutched what appeared to be a small soft ball and squeezed it over and over.
Elon Musk is coming to court.Credit…Jason Henry for The New York Times
Mr. Altman is less conspicuous. This week, a fellow reporter who had never seen him in person said he was much smaller than she thought. On Monday, before jury selection, Mr. Altman came up to me and said, “I hope you like it.” Later, someone who appeared to be one of Mr. Musk’s lawyers responded to another Times reporter who posted the quote on social media, saying: “What can we do about it?”
When Mr. Musk took the stand on Tuesday and Wednesday, Mike and I got a pretty good taste of two very different sides of his personality — though our view was often blocked by lawyers and giant computer displays used to present court evidence. When questioned by his own lawyer, Mr. Musk calmly explained that he and his numerous tech companies are on a mission to save the world. Under cross-examination, he became belligerent, occasionally raising his voice and hurling sly insults at OpenAI’s chief counsel.
Mr. Musk left OpenAI less than three years after he founded the lab with Mr. Altman. Now they don’t really like each other. On social media, Mr. Musk recently called his old co-founder “Scam Altman.”
When Mr. Musk first appeared in court on Tuesday, the judge went after him for writing about the trial on X, the social media platform he owns. He said he was just responding to things OpenAI posted online. So the judge told both Mr. Musk and Mr. Altman to start with a “clean slate” and “keep things to a minimum” on social media.
They agreed. We’ll see if it holds up.
