Musk v. Altman proved that AI is led by the wrong people

A technical assessment of the year, Musk v. Altmanin the end it was a struggle for power. Elon Musk argued that Sam Altman, who helped found the world’s largest startup OpenAI, should not control the future of AI. Altman’s lawyers also expressed their confidence in Musk. The jury came to a decision Monday after just two hours of negotiations, rejecting Musk’s claims due to limitations.

In the strict sense of the law, the three weeks of evidence were nothing. But the case offered a larger takeaway: At least no one seems worthy of trusting him. Some of the most powerful people in technology seem incapable of honesty. And if that is true, it raises a big question: Why are they ruling a trillion companies that plan to improve people’s lives?

OpenAI was, in Musk and Altman’s testimony, established to prevent powerful AI from being owned by the wrong people. Testimony and evidence showed his founding team to be concerned about who would oversee Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), a buzzword for AI that equals or exceeds human intelligence and abilities. They great fear Google DeepMind and its leader, Demis Hassabis. In 2015, Altman said he had been pondering whether there was anything “that could stop people from creating AI” — and after concluding that it was impossible, he wanted “someone to stop Google and do it first.”

Co-founders Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever have so strongly opposed the dominance of a single person that they seemed ready to make gains that would – in their words – give Musk “the tyranny of AI.” In another part of the same email to Altman, Brockman and Sutskever questioned his motivations, writing, “We couldn’t trust your judgment throughout this…

These concerns can be quickly done. The central purpose of Musk v. Altman it was a “blip,” a five-day period in November 2023 when OpenAI’s board fired Altman as CEO. Sutskever spent money more than a year In preparation for his removal, he is compiling a 52-page document about “a habit of lying, humiliating his victims, and fighting with his victims.” The result was more than just an official fight, which would affect the release of AI systems. Then-CTO Mira Murati, for example, testified in court that Altman told OpenAI’s legal team to allow him to skip a security review of one of his models — a statement, he said, that turned out to be false.

Finally, Musk’s attorney, Steven Molo, listed a long list of people who swore that Altman was somehow a liar – all of whom Altman had worked with over the years. “The prosecution needs you to believe Sam Altman,” Molo told the jury. If you can’t trust him, if you don’t trust him, he won’t win.

But in court cases, Musk – who now leads the xAI lab competition, under his company SpaceX – did not fare well. Joshua Achiam, now the chief futurist of OpenAI, testified that Musk’s competition against Google led him to take an “unsafe and reckless” approach to achieving AGI. After he and others raised concerns, he says, Musk said that OpenAI’s profit-making led to people ignoring security, but that his xAI was profitable and had value. random security system. And in the name of ensuring that OpenAI remains open, Musk has been busy in his quest to improve it. In closing arguments, Sarah Eddy, one of OpenAI’s attorneys, told the jury that Musk “wants control over AGI.”

As a single X user install it“If the infidelity was too much, putting Musk and Altman so close together would have plunged the courtroom and the entire world into a black hole.”

OpenAI and Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It’s not just Musk and Altman, either. Test evidence will be provided Murati helped get Altman fired, then switched sides to support his reinstatement while appearing “absolutely disinterested” in revealing his role. Shivon Zilis, a close friend of Musk’s who served on OpenAI’s board, asked Musk if he “would like me to be close and friendly with OpenAI so that knowledge flows” during his departure – avoiding revealing that he had two children at the time. Brockman’s diary entries greatly aided Musk’s case; at one point, he admitted that Musk could have said “correctly” that “we weren’t being honest with him” about whether OpenAI would make meaningful changes without his involvement.

Musk v. Altman He gave everyone a chance throw dirt on each other and, in theory, establish himself as the most careful AI supervisor. But what’s clear is that several household names in the AI ​​industry are unintelligent — and, at worst, crooks with little regard for the consequences of their actions.

Public opinion on AI is very low. In a Pew Research study from last summer, half of US adults said “the increased use of AI in daily life makes them more concerned than happy” – and only 10 percent said they were more happy than worried. Many of these challenges are related to layoffs, but protests are growing against the construction of massive data centers. pass through and the world. Some resistance has turned into violence, people say attempt to attack Altman’s house twice twice. And many tech CEOs themselves save it that they have bunkers or other doomsday plans if things don’t go well.

These companies push messages to the group that AI empowers users. But Pew Research’s 2025 survey found this about 60 percent US officials feel they have no control over how AI is used in their lives. In the US, the prospect of a more transparent government policy – ​​which would provide some degree of external oversight – remains tenuous. And now, it’s clearer than ever how far the world’s biggest AI players will go to dominate.

Among the affidavits, one document provides a rare example of Altman and Musk’s commitment to power. In March 2015, Altman sent an email to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella with a simple request: Sign the letter that he and Musk are writing, asking the US government to establish a “new agency to oversee the safety of AI” and address “a major threat to human progress that many people are ignoring.” A few weeks later, Nadella responded to shut down the idea. “The issue of public safety and the management problem will be the real issues,” he said. But officials, he insisted, should call for “federal funding and encourage research,” not oversight. Altman quickly agreed. The letter, he promised, would be amended — leaving room for regulation of the AI ​​industry “if and when.”