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‘Elon Musk Appeared More Petty Than Prepared’
Elizabeth Lopatto, reporting on Musk v. Altman from the courtroom in Oakland (gift link):
Today the first witness was sworn in in *Musk v. Altman: *Elon Musk. I was surprised by how flat he seemed.
This is not the first time I’ve seen Musk in court. During his defamation suit, he turned on the charm and the jury responded by finding him not guilty. Today he looked adrift and unprepared. The only times he showed real animation were when he was bragging about how much he’d done for OpenAI. [...]
What did Musk do at OpenAI? “I came up with the idea, the name, recruited the key people, taught them everything I know, provided all the initial funding. Besides that, nothing.” He paused for laughter, and one or two people obligingly chuckled. But most of the courtroom was silent. I thought he sounded petulant. “I could have started it as a for-profit and I chose not to,” Musk said.
Elon Musk petty, petulant, smug, awkward, and unprepared? Where’s my fainting couch?
At another point, Musk was asked to explain who former OpenAI board member Shivon Zilis was. “Shivon was the, um, my chief of staff and, uh, you know,” Musk said. One person in the gallery — presumably familiar with the fact that Zilis is the mother of a few of Musk’s kids — burst out in loud laughter. But the jury looked puzzled.
In an earlier post today, I pointed out that it’s at least slightly awkward that NYT reporter Mike Isaac is live-tweeting the proceedings on Twitter/X, a platform owned by Musk (and where he famously has rigged the algorithm in his own favor), but, well, when you own an empire as sprawling as Musk’s, pieces of it are bound to collide.
It’s the same with women who are the mothers of Musk’s children.
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‘Sordid and Small’
Matteo Wong, covering Musk v. Altman for The Atlantic (gift link):
Musk is asking that Altman be removed from OpenAI’s board, that the company convert back to a nonprofit, and for the return of allegedly “ill-gotten gains” — some $150 billion — which Musk says would go to OpenAI’s charitable trust. Outside legal experts say that Musk is unlikely to win all or even much of this. His argument is confusing: OpenAI has certainly evolved from a nonprofit lab to a revenue-chasing, consumer behemoth, and a chorus of critics has alleged that it has deviated from its original mission of ensuring that AGI benefits humanity. But Musk himself appears to have insisted that OpenAI couldn’t keep up as a nonprofit — for instance, in early 2018, he wrote an email to OpenAI leadership saying that merging the firm with Tesla “is the only path that could even hope to hold a candle to Google.” And even before he sued, Musk launched a rival for-profit company, xAI. “Mr. Musk’s lawsuit is a pageant of hypocrisy,” William Savitt, a lawyer for OpenAI, told the jury today, later adding that Musk had “sour grapes.” [...]
The trial makes the AI boom seem sordid and small. In his sworn deposition, Altman wrote that Musk used to message him complaints that he wanted more credit for the success of OpenAI and took offense at not being included in an anniversary photo. [...] Musk, for his part, has said that he would drop his lawsuit if OpenAI changed its name to “ClosedAI.” Yesterday, as jury selection began, Musk began furiously posting on X and repeatedly called his co-founder “Scam Altman.” Before the start of opening arguments today, Gonzalez Rogers admonished Musk and Altman for their social-media use, asking them to limit their “propensity” to post about the trial; both meekly assented, “Yes.”
It all seems so petty and spiteful, but this is a real federal lawsuit with the entire future of the biggest startup in history at stake.