Musk v Altman: tech bros at war over OpenAI – The Latest

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0:47OpenAI rejected all of Musk's various accusations and said that Musk is basically just a sore loser in this. The trial pitting two of the world's biggest tech billionaires against each other has come to an end. A federal judge in California today dismissed a lawsuit from Elon Musk against the maker of ChatGPT. Every single competitor is doing all they can to slow the others down or leapfrog them because there's just trillions of dollars on the table. A face-off in court between the world's richest man and the king of the AI boom. Why did OpenAI's Sam Altman win a case brought against him by former backer Elon Musk?

1:25From the Guardians today in Focus, This is The Latest with me, Lucy Hoth. Well, joining me down the line from New York is Nick Robbins-Early, tech and power reporter for Guardian US. Nick, thanks for dialing in early doors in New York. So you have for three weeks been covering this fairly extraordinary trial between two of the great tech titans, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX, amongst his other ventures. because victory was handed to Sam Altman unanimously by the jury yesterday. And we'll come on to kind of what that was all about. But can you describe to me, first of all, what it was like?

2:05You described it in one headline as cringey, which I was intrigued by. Yeah, I mean, it's been a very interesting trial. It has been at times cringey, and it's been very personal as well as professional. You know, there's been a lot of details in the case that have been very private details about, you know, personal diary entries, texts between the executives, little stuff that really we never thought would become public. So it's generated a lot of moments that, yeah, are at times quite cringy. Because I guess we're used to seeing Sam Altman on sort of stage at OpenAI product launches or Elon Musk kind of bouncing around at Trump rallies or whatever.

2:48But to see them kind of standing in the witness box must have been a slightly surreal experience. What other sides of them did we see in the case? Yeah, I mean, we in some way saw the way that they normally present themselves just magnified through this court case. And we saw them under pressure and we saw them a little out of their comfort zone. It's kind of a little window into how these people react under pressure and the ways that they are presenting themselves publicly versus the ways that they're privately operating. Yeah. So let's talk more about the circumstances of the case. So Sam Altman launched OpenAI with the support of Elon Musk and its president, Greg Brockman, back in the halcyon days of 2015, when it was a startup and crucially a not-for-profit.

3:3911 years later, clearly its mission has changed. It's moved to a for-profit model. And that's the terms on which Musk brought the case, right? He said in court that it was like stealing a charity. Yeah, that's right. I mean, that's sort of the crux of the case. He argues that Sam Altman sort of swindled him, essentially, kind of convinced him to invest in this non-profit, gave it his imprimatur and financial backing. And then since Musk left in 2018, after this sort of internal power struggle, Altman corrupted the mission of the company, which was to better humanity through AI and created this for-profit corporate structure.

4:18How did they try to present each side of that case in the witness stand? OpenAI rejected all of Musk's various accusations and said that they're still committed to bettering humanity, they're still overseen by a non-profit, and that crucially Musk knew that they were always intending to create this for-profit structure, and that Musk is basically just a sore loser in this, that he is motivated by jealousy and that he has lost the AI race. And so that's why he's bringing this suit. Yeah. So the judgment seems to have been that Musk knew around 2017 that OpenAI was moving into a for-profit model and the jury agreed unanimously on that.

5:02And the judge indicated that she also agreed, right? Yeah, that's sort of the interesting hitch of this decision, they didn't actually rule on the merits of Musk's claims about, you know, Altman, quote unquote, stealing a charity. They ruled that he didn't bring the case within the statute of limitations, which kind of suggested, based on the arguments that we heard through the trial, that they believed Open Eye's case that Musk was aware of these way back when and that he waited too long to object. So does that give him any grounds to appeal? Is there any further that this could go? He has said that he will appeal and it's very possible that this gets kicked up again in a few months.

5:46And he's sort of twisting this as a loss on a technicality. But for right now, it's a pretty striking victory for Altman and OpenAI. They've won this case as it stands. And what were the damages that Musk were looking for? I was just shocked when I saw the number of zeros that it might involve. He was asking for quite a bit. He wanted up to$150 billion to be taken from OpenAI's for-profit, redistributed to its non-profit. He wanted Altman and Brockman fired, basically. He wanted the undoing of OpenAI's for-profit structure. All of these would have been a really big deal and a really huge impediment for OpenAI had Musk won this case.

6:40Okay, so a big victory for Sam Altman, as you say. But what do you think we can read into the timing and the possible motivations of Elon Musk in bringing this case? It was reported six months ago that OpenAI is planning a public stock market flotation with an estimated value of$1 trillion. Do you think that perhaps Elon Musk is thinking, ah, he's sold out of this company far too early? I mean, that was certainly OpenAI's argument during the trial. They were saying that this was just, you know, sour grapes, basically. And it is this really heated AI race right now where every single competitor is doing all they can to slow the others down or leapfrog them.

7:27because there's just, as you said, trillions of dollars on the table. And so I think when you're looking at this case, you have to look at it in the wider context of what's happening within the industry right now. Yeah, and what did we learn about the sort of truth of what happens behind the scenes at a company like OpenAI or when a figure like Musk leaves a company? I mean, it must have been such an extraordinary sort of portal into that world. Yeah, and especially to get it all from the top executives and under oath. I mean, we learned that it's really messy. We learned that OpenAI is a much more contentious and fractious company than they like to present themselves as this very sleek sheen.

8:08But over the years, there's a lot of people who have been either pushed out as board members or co-founders who have left and now have a lot of animosity towards Altman and OpenAI. We heard on the stand a long list of executives testifying that Altman was dishonest or had a pattern of lying in some cases. And so we got a little look behind the curtain of just how dramatic this company is. Yeah, and I guess it made me feel slightly alarmed. Like on both sides, neither one of these men is particularly warm and humanitarian, shall we say. both of them you know Elon Musk the richest man in the world Sam Altman at the absolute forefront of the AI race I mean what do you think this says more broadly about the AI boom?

9:02Yeah I think if you talk with researchers and experts who are interested in AI ethics or interested in the impacts that AI is having on our society you know they would not say that there is a a good guy to root for in this case. I think they have deep concerns about the leadership of all AI companies, but certainly the ways that, you know, XAI, OpenAI, you name it, are leading this industry and how that might affect us, you know, people who don't really have a lot of say in it. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Nick, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for having me. That's it for today. My huge thanks to Nick Robbins Early, tech and power reporter for Guardian US.

9:50You can keep up with his reporting over at theguardian.com. And do listen to today's episode of our sister podcast, Science Weekly. Ian Sample will be speaking to a clinical epidemiologist about what we know about the current Ebola outbreak. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Latest. Today in Focus will be back in your feeds as usual tomorrow morning. The Latest will be back tomorrow night. This episode was presented by me, Lucy Hoff. It was produced by Bryony Moore. The senior producer was Ryan Ramgobin, and the lead producer was Zoe Hitch. I'm Kai Wright. I'm Kai Sherman. And we are here to tell you about our new show, which is rooted in this feeling that at least I have, I know you have, where, you know, it's kind of like when you wake up in the morning and you pick up your phone and you're just hit in the face with a fire hose of news, right?

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