Elon Musk v. Sam Altman trial day 4
What you need to know
- Elon Musk will take the stand for the third time on Thursday.
- Jared Birchall, who manages Musk’s family office and is an executive at xAI and Neuralink, is also set to testify Thursday.
- Musk and OpenAI lawyer William Savitt sparred on Wednesday in a cross-examination that was heated.
- Musk said he lost trust in Sam Altman by late 2022, around the time of Microsoft’s $10 billion investment in OpenAI, which was a tipping point.
Elon Musk will conclude his testimony on Thursday as the trial in his lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman rolls into its fourth day.
OpenAI’s attorney, William Savitt, cross-examined Musk for several hours on Wednesday, and the two men clashed repeatedly. Musk accused Savitt of lying and asking misleading questions that were “designed to trick” him. His cross-examination is expected to last for another hour on Thursday.
Musk sued OpenAI, Altman, and Greg Brockman, the company’s president, in 2024, alleging that they went back on their commitments to keep the artificial intelligence company a nonprofit and to follow its charitable mission. He claims that the roughly $38 million he donated to seed OpenAI, a company he co-founded, was used for unauthorized commercial purposes.
Once Musk is done testifying on Thursday, his attorneys will call Jared Birchall, who manages Musk’s billions at his family office, as their next witness. Brockman and Stuart Russell, a computer science professor at the University of California, Berkeley, could also be called to the stand.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is overseeing the proceedings from federal court in Oakland, California
CNBC’s reporters are covering Thursday’s proceedings from the courtroom, as well as from CNBC’s bureaus in San Francisco and Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
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