Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers repeatedly intervened during the third day of Elon Musk’s testimony in his lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman, steering attorneys away from broad debates about AI’s potential threat to humanity.
NBC News reports that the contentious legal battle between Elon Musk and OpenAI entered its third day with Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers firmly redirecting the proceedings back to the core legal issues at hand. The case centers on Musk’s claims that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman betrayed public trust by enriching himself through the AI company they co-founded in 2015 as a nonprofit organization.
The day began with a heated exchange when Musk’s attorney Steven Molo attempted to discuss AI’s potential dangers. “This is a real risk, we all could die as a result of artificial intelligence,” Molo argued in objection to the judge’s efforts to limit the discussion.
Judge Rogers quickly shut down this line of argument, pointing out the irony in Musk’s position. “It’s ironic your client, despite these risks, is creating a company that is in the exact space,” Rogers stated. “There are some people who do not want to put the future of humanity in Mr. Musk’s hands … But we’re not going to get into that business.”
The lawsuit represents the culmination of a years-long dispute between the two tech leaders, who have previously exchanged public criticism online. Altman was present in the courtroom during Musk’s testimony on Wednesday and Thursday.
The four-week trial could have significant implications for OpenAI’s future and its flagship product, ChatGPT. Musk is seeking approximately $134 billion in damages from OpenAI and co-defendant Microsoft, one of OpenAI’s major financial supporters. His lawsuit claims that OpenAI benefited substantially from his financial contributions, advice, recruitment assistance, and business connections.
OpenAI’s defense challenges Musk’s narrative, asserting that he never fulfilled his original $1 billion commitment to the company, a fact Musk confirmed during his testimony this week. The defense further argues that Musk departed the organization after Altman and fellow co-founders Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever rejected his attempts to gain control of OpenAI or merge it with Tesla.
During testimony on Wednesday, Musk stated that he “deliberately chose to create OpenAI as a nonprofit for the public good.” However, in 2023, he launched his own for-profit AI venture, xAI. Earlier this year, SpaceX, Musk’s aerospace company, acquired xAI, creating a combined private entity valued at more than $1.2 trillion.
Meanwhile, OpenAI underwent a significant corporate transformation, completing its restructuring in October. The company shifted from its capped-profit model to a traditional for-profit structure, though it remains overseen by a nonprofit foundation. Last month, OpenAI closed a funding round that raised $122 billion for its for-profit division.
“It was obviously started as a nonprofit in the founding charter. It says it will not be to the financial benefit of any one person,” Musk testified on Thursday during cross-examination, reiterating his central complaint. “You just can’t steal a charity, and that’s what it comes down to.”
Throughout his testimony, Musk displayed a contentious relationship with OpenAI’s attorney Bill Savitt, responding at one point: “Few answers are going to be complete, especially if you cut me off all the time.”
During questioning, Musk denied directing the algorithm on X, the social media platform he purchased in 2022, to suppress OpenAI’s account. The platform heavily integrates Grok, the chatbot developed by xAI.
However, Musk acknowledged using OpenAI technology in developing xAI. “It is standard practice to use other AIs to validate your AI,” Musk explained. “It just means you ask another AI questions and validate them against yours.”
Musk also revealed on Wednesday that he ultimately contributed $38 million to OpenAI instead of the promised $1 billion, explaining that he “lost confidence in the team.”
As his testimony concluded, Musk addressed questions about creating “a military army of robots.” He clarified that xAI does “not make any weapons” and aims to prevent a human-machine conflict similar to scenarios depicted in The Terminator. “You see, in the movie, it’s not a good situation,” Musk commented, adding that he has no intention of creating circumstances where “AI kills us all.”
As tech tycoons battle it out in court, it is more important than ever for conservatives to control how AI is used by their loved ones, organizations, and the country at large. Breitbart News social media director Wynton Hall has written his instant bestseller Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI to serve as the definitive guide on how the MAGA movement can create positions on AI that benefit humanity without handing control of our nation to the leftists of Silicon Valley or allowing the Chinese to take over the world.
Read more at NBC News here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of AI, free speech, and online censorship.