By default, Elon Musk can’t escape his tweets

Elon Musk appeared in federal court in California on Wednesday to argue that Sam Altman and his co-founder “robbered charity.” He left after admitting, under oath, that Tesla is not doing artificial intelligence (AGI) – a direct contradiction to a tweet he had written a few weeks earlier.

It was such a day for Musk.

A lawsuit filed against the OpenAI developer claims that Altman and other co-founders tricked him into supporting the nonprofit, then launched the organization’s for-profit arm and let it control the organization.

After several hours of testimony Musk testified, it seems that the case may go down with the number of judges and Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will make between the investors in OpenAI to have their profits or not.

In Musk’s words, after re-opening the lab with Altman, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman and others, he believed them to create a human AI, but over time he began to question their intentions, and in the end he decided that they were “stealing for nothing.”

OpenAI’s lawyer, William Savitt, tried to complicate the matter during the interview, trying to show that Musk supported several efforts to turn OpenAI into a profit so that he could get the necessary funds to compete with companies like Google, including integrating the AI ​​lab at Tesla.

Musk testified that he discussed turning the company into a for-profit company in early 2016, and that in 2017, he explored creating a for-profit OpenAI team where he would handle more and manage the company. When those plans fell through, he stopped donating full-time to OpenAI, though he continued to pay for his space until 2020.

Musk stressed that there was a big difference between investors whose profits are capped and those whose profits are unlimited. Microsoft’s initial investment in OpenAI limited the software giant’s profits, but those restrictions have been rolled back over the years. Musk says this change prompted him to bring the lawsuit.

Savitt tried to confirm that Musk had been interviewed by Altman and Shivon Zillis — his longtime adviser and the mother of his four children — about the fundraising efforts, and he did not object. Zillis was also a member of the OpenAI board when it approved some of the initiatives.

This research led to Tesla’s AI ambitions. Incidentally, Musk was asked about Tesla’s efforts to develop competing AI technologies and he found himself, not for the first time, on the wrong side of one of his posts on X. After Musk said that Tesla’s AI project is focused on self-driving and not AGI (the term for AI systems that can do any of the intelligent tasks that have been asked of the current human task), post saying that “Tesla will be one of the leading AGI companies.” “We’re not pursuing AGI at this point,” Musk told the court. (Tesla owners may want to take note.)

Musk was also asked about a post where he said he invested $100 million in OpenAI, not the $38 million that actually changed hands. He argued that his reputation and network made the difference.

Savitt brought up emails in which Musk supported efforts by Tesla and his neural network company, Neuralink, to poach employees from OpenAI while still part of the company. Some discussion focused on his efforts to recruit OpenAI leaders when he left the board in 2018, including Andrej Karpathy, who left OpenAI to lead the self-driving project at Tesla. Musk was also asked about the conversation in which Zillis encouraged Musk to hire Sutskever at Tesla.

Today’s most important thread, however, may be about harm prevention. Part of Musk’s case rests on the idea that the transformation of OpenAI into a traditional organization is dangerous to society because it reduces the company’s focus on security. Savitt, in turn, Musk acknowledged that all AI companies, including his own, suffer from this risk.

Judge Gonzalez Rogers suspended the questioning, but speaking to lawyers after testimony indicated it would resume, with limitations. When Musk’s lawyers floated questions about ChatGPT’s role in the Tumbler Ridge shooting—an incident earlier this year in Canada where a man was killed after having a deep conversation with a chatbot—they made it clear that they didn’t want to hear about the scandals caused by AI models, but that xAI and OpenAI’s security measures were right in the game.

Musk will return on Thursday to take questions from critics. Also expected to testify are his family office manager, Jared Birchall; AI security expert Stuart Russell; and OpenAI President Greg Brockman.

Correction: The original version of this article misstated the Tumbler Ridge painting due to an editing problem. It has been updated.