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Musk's partner Zillis testifies… OpenAI's former CTO also says "Altman fosters distrust and confusion"
Testimony has emerged that Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, who sued OpenAI for breaking its non-profit promise and commercializing, had previously proposed incorporating OpenAI as a subsidiary of Tesla.
Shivon Zillis, a former OpenAI director known as Musk's partner, testified to this effect at a trial held at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Oakland Division, on the 6th (local time), according to Reuters and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
Zillis testified, "At the time, a huge number of proposals regarding governance structure poured into OpenAI," adding, "Among them was Musk's proposal that 'OpenAI become a subsidiary of Tesla.'"
It is reported that during this process, the agenda of recruiting Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, as a director on Tesla's board was also discussed.
However, Musk's proposals were rejected by Altman CEO and Greg Brockman, OpenAI President, among others, and thus fell through.
Zillis, the former director, stated that Musk was concerned that Tesla would compete with OpenAI for engineering talent just before he left the OpenAI board in 2018, adding, "Musk even recruited OpenAI's top AI researcher to Tesla just days before stepping down from the board."
This testimony appears to contradict CEO Musk's legal argument that 'OpenAI broke its non-profit promise and became a for-profit entity, thus deceiving him.'
OpenAI, on its part, claims that CEO Musk wanted a 'for-profit structure where he had control,' rather than a non-profit structure.
Former director Zillis also criticized the management style of Altman and Brockman, two OpenAI executives.
She revealed that when OpenAI was discussing a contract with the nuclear fusion startup 'Helion,' the two individuals who held significant stakes in the startup participated in the discussions until the end, despite being pointed out for conflicts of interest.
She also testified that the board expressed extreme concern at the time because there was no consultation with the board during the process of launching ChatGPT.
On this day, controversy also arose regarding Zillis, who appeared as a witness in the trial. OpenAI criticized Zillis, the former director, for having four of Musk's children but not informing the board until this fact was reported in the media in 2022.
Additionally, a recorded testimony from Mira Murati, CEO of Thinking Machines Lab, who served as OpenAI's former Chief Technology Officer (CTO), was screened in court today.
Murati criticized CEO Altman, saying, "He would say one thing to one person and the exact opposite to another," implying he fostered distrust among the executives.
She recalled that when CEO Altman was temporarily removed from the board in 2023, "the company was in catastrophic danger of dissolving," and "I was worried the company would completely collapse."
In this lawsuit, CEO Musk is demanding the removal of CEO Altman and President Brockman and that the two return any unjust gains obtained from OpenAI to the non-profit OpenAI board.
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