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Testified for a second day in a U.S. court... "Filed the lawsuit late because concerns became reality"
Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, who sued OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, claiming he abandoned OpenAI's non-profit mission and gained unfair profits, said he had these concerns since Microsoft (MS) invested in OpenAI.
According to Reuters and U.S. business channel CNBC, CEO Musk testified on the 29th (local time) at a trial held in the Oakland division of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California that MS's $10 billion (approx. 14.8 trillion won) investment was the decisive moment that made him suspect OpenAI.
Testifying for the second consecutive day, he said, "At the time, I texted Altman, asking 'What on earth is going on?' and protested, 'This is a bait-and-switch tactic.'"
He pointed out, "With a scale of $10 billion, it's absolutely impossible for MS to give that money simply as a donation or for charity. It's an amount that makes no sense."
He then asked, "I'm sorry to say this to MS, but do you really want to give control of digital superintelligence to MS?" and claimed, "I lost trust in Altman in late 2022 and became concerned that they were trying to steal a public interest organization, which turned out to be true."
When asked why he filed the lawsuit so late, he replied, "Thinking someone might steal a car is different from someone actually stealing a car," adding, "It's because my concerns later became reality."
He lamented, "I was a fool," stating that the initial $38 million he provided was used to create a for-profit company worth $800 billion, and pointed out, "Wealth should not be accumulated through non-profit organizations."
He also emphasized that he was the one who recruited Ilya Sutskever, who served as OpenAI's chief scientist.
When asked why he established his AI company xAI as a for-profit entity, he countered, "I made all companies except OpenAI that way," and explained, "xAI is strictly speaking a competitor to OpenAI, but it's a very small company with a negligible market share."
OpenAI claims that CEO Musk filed this lawsuit due to the competitive relationship between OpenAI and xAI, but Musk effectively denied this by mentioning the size disparity between the two companies.
Musk's rough speaking style also came under scrutiny.
When OpenAI's lawyers asked if he had ever used vulgar terms like 'jackass' towards OpenAI personnel, he replied, "It's possible."
He explained, "I'm not someone who gets angry or yells, but sometimes I use strong language to make employees uncomfortable when they are about to make fatal choices that could ruin the company."
CEO Musk filed a lawsuit in 2024, claiming that he suffered damages as OpenAI abandoned its promise to operate as a non-profit and became a for-profit company, and that CEO Altman and President Greg Brockman gained unfair profits in the process.
CEO Musk is demanding that CEO Altman and President Brockman be dismissed and that the $134 billion (approx. 198 trillion won) in unjust enrichment they acquired be returned to the OpenAI Foundation, the non-profit parent organization.
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