He Elon Musk lawsuit against OpenAI (or rather, against Sam Altman) is being the soap opera of the year in the tech universe. The main accusation is that OpenAI violated its founding agreement to be a non-profit organizationbut the rivalry between its two protagonists goes far beyond business, it’s personal. The trial was intended to be a spectacle in which all kinds of dirty laundry were going to be aired and it is not disappointing.
Two versions very different. Or rather, completely opposite. Elon Musk’s version is that OpenAI has betrayed the founding agreement of being a non-profit organization, whose goal was to achieve AGI that would benefit humanity, all because of the greed of Sam Altman. “This lawsuit is very simple: it is wrong to steal from a charity,” he said in his opening statement.
The OpenAI version It’s just the opposite: the one who intended to profit was Elon Musk and, when the rest of the founders did not want to follow his plans, he left angry. According to OpenAI’s lawyer, Musk’s anger began when the ChatGPT boom occurred in 2022. “That’s when the resentment arises,” he declared.
I didn’t read the fine print. The main reason for the lawsuit is, as we said, that OpenAI changed its founding commitment to achieving AGI to serve humanity. Although there are emails that agree with Musk, in 2017 he signed a document detailing the transition to a for-profit company. When asked why he signed said document if he was against it, Musk said that “I didn’t read the fine print, just the headline,” a statement that doesn’t play in her favor, especially when she has tried to sell the role of deceived victim.
Desperate Altman. Both parties have provided evidence to defend their position, among which all types of annotations and private conversations that leave both in a very bad place. One of those conversations is an exchange of messages between Sam Altman and Mira Murati in 2023when Altman was removed from the companyin which he has a desperate attitude, even suggesting that Microsoft buy OpenAI to be able to return. The exchange shows a very non-transparent and chaotic internal climate, closer to a power negotiation than an organization with an altruistic mission.
burning man. Part of the defense strategy of OpenAI’s lawyers is to paint Elon Musk as an unstable and unreliable person. Among the questions they asked him, one stood out in which they questioned whether Musk had attended the Burning Man music festival and whether he had consumed ‘rhino ketamine’. The CEO of SpaceX denied it and the judge vetoed further questions about substance use.
The informant. One of the key witnesses is Shivon Zilis, who between 2020 and 2023 was part of the OpenAI board. At the same time, Zilis was in a romantic relationship with Musk and had four children with him. The problem, according to OpenAI, is that none of this was communicated and Zilis was actually acting as an informant of Musk, who tried to influence the company’s decisions from outside.
Brockman’s Diary. Greg Brockman, one of the co-founders of OpenAI, kept a diary in which he wrote down all kinds of thoughts. Brockman saw the break with Musk as “the only opportunity” to remove OpenAI from its orbit, while he openly considered how to reach $1 billion. For Musk’s team, the diary is gold because they present it as proof of their intention to get rich. For OpenAI, it is simply the internal dialogue of a Brockman concerned about the tension between its mission and economic sustainability.
Cover image | Village Global and Gage Skidmorevia Flickr
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