Through the lawsuit, OpenAI accused Musk of taking too much credit for OpenAI’s success. It is worth noting that Musk’s expert dismissed the scientists and programmers who invented ChatGPT as “contributing zero percent of the non-profit’s current value,” as OpenAI claimed.
Star-studded list of witnesses
Musk and Altman will likely testify for more than two hours each, along with other senior tech leaders who will likely be called as witnesses in the trial.
Brockman is scheduled to stand for two and a half hours and possibly longer, while Microsoft co-defendant Satya Nadella is scheduled to stand for one hour.
Sutskever is also on the witness list, given a 30-minute deadline, as is Sivonne Zillis, one of Musk’s associates and the mother of four of his children. Zillis may have been a key witness, as Altman foolishly trusted her. During his testimony, Altman described Zelis as “Elon’s whisperer,” while emphasizing that he was unaware of her personal relationship with Musk during that time or he would not have turned to her for guidance on how to deal with such a difficult relationship.
In an order requiring all witnesses to use the court’s front door to enter the proceedings, Gonzalez-Rogers said the trial could extend to four weeks, and no witness would receive special treatment. That should make for interesting photos as Silicon Valley insiders prepare to go on trial to uncover more “juicy gossip,” NBC News reported.
For Musk, preparing for the trial could be frustrating, as reports don’t count his AI company among OpenAI’s biggest competitors. Instead, Reuters noted that OpenAI “faces unprecedented competition” from Anthropic – recently valued at $1 trillion – while reporting that xAI “lags far behind OpenAI in usage.” Likewise, NBC News cited Anthropic and Google as OpenAI’s biggest competitors.
During Musk’s trial, OpenAI’s lawyers revealed a potential tactic in fighting Musk’s lawsuit. They asked Musk whether he still considers AGI an “existential threat,” considering that he runs an AI company that, unlike OpenAI, no longer aspires to be regulated as a “public benefit corporation.”
“It’s risky,” Musk testified, apparently unwilling to acknowledge any inconsistency in his decision to create a for-profit AI company.
