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Elon Musk is in his third day of testimony Thursday in a blockbuster lawsuit that could help determine the future of companies racing to dominate artificial intelligence.
Mr. Musk has already spent two days preparing and defending his lawsuit against OpenAI, the AI start-up he helped found and spent tens of millions of dollars in funding. Mr Musk claimed that OpenAI abandoned its founding promise to remain a non-profit organization and that its co-founders, including the company’s CEO Sam Altman, took advantage of his donations.
Mr. Musk spent hours testifying as he described himself as someone who protected humanity from the dangers of AI. He painted Mr. Altman and another OpenAI co-founder and defendant, Greg Brockman, as nothing but money hungry.
On Wednesday afternoon, the cross-examination became contentious as OpenAI’s lead lawyer, William Savitt, questioned Mr. Musk’s credibility. Mr. Savitt tried to show that Mr. Musk behaved no differently than the OpenAI co-founders he is suing, pushing for the AI start-up to adopt a for-profit model. And Mr. Savitt pointed to evidence that Mr. Musk filed the lawsuit after he founded his own AI lab, xAI, in 2023, which lags behind OpenAI.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who is presiding over the case in federal court in Oakland, California, interrupted Mr. Savitt and Mr. Musk several times during cross-examination on Wednesday.
“The classic yes or no answer is not that simple,” Musk said. “For example, if you ask the question: Will you stop beating your wife?”
Judge Gonzalez Rogers cut him off and said, “No, we’re not going there.”
The barrage is likely to continue on Thursday as Mr Musk faces further questioning by lawyers for OpenAI and Microsoft, which is also named in the suit.
Mr. Musk is seeking more than $150 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, OpenAI’s largest financial partner. It is also asking the court to remove Mr Altman from the board and halt the start-up’s recent move to operate as a for-profit company.
The trial could reshape the global AI race. OpenAI is a leading company in the field of artificial intelligence, and a victory for Mr. Musk would also be a win for its competitors, including industry giants such as Google, as well as young companies such as Anthropic and xAI, which have now been absorbed by Mr. Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX.
A loss for Mr. Musk would mean that OpenAI, now valued at about $730 billion, would be free to continue on its commercial course just as it appears headed for one of the biggest initial public offerings in history.
(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging copyright infringement of news content related to AI systems. Both companies have denied the suit’s claims.)
What you should know:
Important witnesses: Mr. Altman and several other key industry figures, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Mira Murati, OpenAI’s former chief technology officer, are scheduled to testify later in the process.
Trial Logistics: The trial is expected to last about four weeks before a nine-member jury in Oakland federal court. If the jury finds in favor of Mr. Musk, Judge Gonzalez Rogers, who also oversaw a high-profile lawsuit against Apple over its control of the App Store, will decide on monetary damages and other remedies.
Musk’s Social Media: Judge Gonzalez Rogers called Mr. Musk, who attacked Mr. Altman on X before the court, to the dock on Tuesday to discuss whether there should be a gag order preventing him from posting information about the trial on social media. “How can we do this without you making it worse outside the courtroom?” she asked. The judge asked him and Mr. Altman to start with a “clean slate” and “keep things to a minimum” on social media. Everyone agreed, and so far Mr. Musk has mostly complied.
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