Satya, Sam To Take The Stand This Week + Highlights From Musk v. Altman
Big testimony is expected this week in a trial that's already produced major revelations. Here's what to look out for + the biggest news so far.
The night before Musk v. Altman went to trial, Elon Musk texted OpenAI President Greg Brockman an offer and then an omen: “By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America. If you insist, so it will be.”
The exchange, revealed by OpenAI’s lawyers, came after Musk had floated a possible settlement before Brockman countered with an offer for both sides to drop their claims. That didn’t work, and two weeks into the trial, both men have been forced to answer questions under oath in a place where glibness or hyperbole offer little protection. And while “most hated men in America” isn’t something a jury decides, the case has already revealed plenty about Musk, Brockman, Altman, OpenAI, Microsoft, and others in their orbit.
This week, more top executives are expected to take the stand, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Both will be worth watching, and Altman’s testimony will likely be the most critical, especially on cross-examination.
While the trial largely focuses on OpenAI’s earlier days, the questions for Altman could come closer to the present. For example, Musk’s lawyers might ask about how OpenAI’s founding mission as a nonprofit aligns with the realities of running a commercial business readying for what will inevitably be a $1 trillion+ IPO.
As Week 3 gets underway, here’s a look back at what’s surfaced so far in testimony and other evidence from private texts, personal journals, business dealings, and other drama ranging from the memeable to the consequential:
Testimony highlights so far
So far, the court has heard testimony from Musk; Brockman; Jared Birchall, head of Musk’s family office; former OpenAI board member Shivon Zilis; former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati; AI scholar Stuart Russell; former OpenAI board members Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley; former OpenAI policy researcher Rosie Campbell; and Columbia Law professor David Schizer.
Brockman’s journals: Brockman’s journal entries pondered if OpenAI really wanted to be “the people who bring elon to control of the AGI,” adding: “The flip side is he is fucking famous. he’s got the resources. and he is smart and has a really good sense of what to work on.”
Mira Murati’s texts with Altman: The former OpenAI CTO’s testimony revealed concerns she had with Altman’s record on safety, claiming he’d said GPT-4 Turbo did not need deployment-safety-board review. Her texts with Altman during the 2023 board crisis went viral, including a note that things were looking “Directionally very bad” for Altman’s ability to stay on as CEO and that he’d be replaced by “rando Twitch guy,” aka: Twitch CEO Emmett Shear. (The texts have even become memes on X and inspired some to make songs about them with Suno.)
OpenAI might have been “FreeMind.” Emails from 2015 revealed in court give a glimpse of how Musk and Altman briefly workshopped alternative names during the early days. Musk suggested “Freemind” to contrast DeepMind’s (“one ring to rule them all”) mindset, while Altman briefly suggested “Axon” but then warmed up to Freemind, which he said “definitely conveys the right spirit.” Musk also said he was open to something Turing-related as long as it didn’t sound too ominous,” warning they should avoid anything associated with the Turing Test.
What Satya Nadella actually thought about Sam: Emails between Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and other Microsoft execs showed the company’s faith wasn’t always strong in OpenAI. The emails also revealed Microsoft was in part driven by fear as it worried about losing out to AWS. “I’m highly skeptical of an imminent breakthrough in AGI,” Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott said. “IMO, they’re treating us like a bucket of undifferentiated GPUs.”
Communication concerns have been a theme: Ex-board member Helen Toner said the board often learned about big OpenAI updates and events from Twitter instead of from Altman. Another witness was former OpenAI policy researcher Rosie Campbell, who said OpenAI has evolved from being research-focused and a place to talk about AGI safety into an organization more focused on product.
Story continues below…
Software’s Path Forward In The Agentic AI Era — With ServiceNow’s Amit Zavery (sponsor)
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Numbers from the trial
$30 billion: Greg Brockman’s current stake in OpenAI: During cross-exam, Musk’s lawyer pressed Brockman whether he’s motivated by money or mission: “Are you saying it takes $30 billion to get you out of bed in the morning, but $1 billion doesn’t get you out of bed in the morning?”
$38,191,066: Musk’s total contributions to OpenAI: This was the total amount documents show Elon contributed to OpenAI between 2016 and 2020, which came up during Birchall’s testimony.
$97.4 billion bid for OpenAI’s assets: OpenAI’s side has pointed to Musk’s $97.4 billion bid for OpenAI’s assets as evidence that his interest in the company may be as much about control and competition as charity.
70-80%: Percentage of code Brockman said AI is now writing at OpenAI
$248,295: The value of four Tesla Model 3 sedans that Musk donated in 2018 to OpenAI’s co-founders. On the witness stand, Brockman said the gesture felt like Musk “was buttering us up.”
Top Quotes:
“Worst-case situation is AI kills us all, I suppose.” - Elon Musk, summarizing the plot of Terminator movie when asked by the judge.”
“You suggested that the group meet at the haunted mansion you’d just bought near SF, correct?” - Altman’s lawyer to Musk
“Your questions are not simple, they are designed to trick me, essentially.” - Elon to OpenAI’s lawyer
“I feel like they are playing the Super Bowl and we are playing the Puppy Bowl. Unless we want to have our ass handed to us, we need to step up our game dramatically.” - 2016 email from Elon to OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever
“She [Mira] was waiting to see which way the wind would blow and she didn’t realize that she was the wind.” - Helen Toner, during her deposition, where she said Mira wasn’t interested in explaining to her team about the role her conversations played in the board choosing to oust Altman.
The Intelligence Report
OpenAI is expanding access for companies to advertise inside ChatGPT, introducing more tools for buying, managing and measuring ads. New features include a self-serve Ads Manager, a cost-per-click (CPC) bidding model and an expanding tech partner ecosystem.
Apple agrees to pay iPhone owners in a settlement over Siri and other AI features. It’s also reportedly planning to let users choose third-party AI models for features in iOS 27.
The U.S. government gained early access to AI models from Microsoft, Google, and xAI to advance AI models for national security testing.
New numbers from The Information suggest about half of the cloud backlog is coming from OpenAI and Anthropic. That might prompt new doubt in the sky-high backlog numbers touted by hyperscalers might be less impressive in the context of enterprise growth/adoption.
Meta is reportedly working on an agentic AI assistant for users to help them run everyday tasks.
The White House was also reportedly planning to vet AI models before they’re released.
Google added more AI features for Chrome, building Gemini more deeply into its flagship browser while also offering a new way to access OpenAI’s Codex as a new Chrome extension on Macs and PCs. (Meanwhile, it has officially shut down Project Mariner, which first debuted as a teaser more than a year ago.)
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Big Technology Friday Edition: The Unlikely Anthropic & SpaceX Marriage, OpenAI Trial Revelations, AI Layoffs Or Cope?
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover: 1) Anthropic gets SpaceX compute 2) Is this announcement real or marketing? 3) Anthropic increases rate limits with the new compute 4) Elon + Dario vs. Sam 5) Is this all IPO maneuvering? 6) Mythos is proving valuable for cybersecurity 7) Anthropic’s demand is 80Xing 8) OpenAI’s communication revealed at trial 9) Microsoft was mostly worried about comms for its OpenAI investment 10) Are AI layoffs a real thing or cope? 11) Are these layoffs happening because the AI *isn’t working?
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