Why are Elon Musk and Sam Altman clashing in court?
Battling over the origins and future of OpenAI
It might be the ultimate clash of tech giants: Elon Musk and Sam Altman have been in court this week, battling over the origins of OpenAI and its pivot from a nonprofit company to a for-profit business.
The “deeply personal” civil trial has featured “two very different tales” of OpenAI’s founding, said The New York Times. Musk helped start the company as a nonprofit and contends it was “ripped from its promise of altruism” by Altman’s greed. It is “not OK to steal a charity,” Musk said on the witness stand. Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, counters that the lawsuit is simply “sour grapes” for the success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT years after Musk parted ways in 2018, said the Times. Altman and OpenAI “had the nerve to go on and succeed without” Musk, said William Savitt, OpenAI’s lead counsel.
What did the commentators say?
The trial is “big in every conceivable measure,” said Slate. Musk is seeking $130 billion in damages along with the removal of Altman and another OpenAI co-founder, Greg Brockman, from the company’s board of directors. It also comes as both OpenAI and Musk’s SpaceX — which houses his current AI venture, xAI — prepare to take their companies public. The verdict “could change the very future of Silicon Valley and the future of tech throughout the world forever.”
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Altman and Musk “sure dislike each other,” Matteo Wong said at The Atlantic. Altman and Musk founded OpenAI because they disagreed with Google’s approach to artificial intelligence, then split up over their own disagreements. The trial is giving the public its “clearest glimpse” at a small clique of tech pioneers “whose bickering is shaping the most expensive infrastructure buildout in human history.” It is a technology that could “upend the labor market” and “reshape the geopolitical order,” and neither man wants the other to have that kind of power. The trial makes the AI boom “seem sordid and small.”
A “yearslong feud” between Altman and Musk means the trial is “going to get messy,” Elizabeth Lopatto and Hayden Field said at The Verge. Musk appears to be “trying to damage OpenAI’s reputation however he can.” His demands that the company change its operating structure and remove executives “are likely unrealistic.” But if enough ugly secrets are revealed at trial, Musk will “have made it look like it’s not worth keeping Mr. Altman in his position” at the top of OpenAI, Georgia Institute of Technology’s Deven Desai said to the outlet.
What next?
The trial comes at a “precarious moment” for OpenAI, Rob Nicholls said at The Conversation. Altman was recently the subject of an embarrassing profile in The New Yorker, and the company is “bleeding” money as rival Anthropic surges to the front of the AI conversation. OpenAI expects to lose $14 billion in 2026, and recently shut down its Sora video-creation product. A Musk victory might derail OpenAI’s IPO and leave “ripple effects” that “could be felt for many years to come.”
