Four days in, and Musk's case against OpenAI is looking a lot less clean than his legal team promised. Welcome to Musk v. Altman Daily — I'm Cassidy, with Devin, and we are deep in week one of what may be the most chaotic tech trial of the decade. MIT Technology Review had the line of the week: Musk admits xAI distills OpenAI's models while simultaneously suing OpenAI for existing. That's the whole case, folks. We've got a messy record, some rough cross-examination moments, and an 'AI will kill us all' warning from the witness stand — let's get into it. First up, this is from Lora Kolodny and Ashley Capoot:
OpenAI’s attorney, William Savitt, cross-examined Musk in the morning. He asked Musk about the capped nature of Microsoft’s investments in OpenAI, his involvement in negotiations about the company’s structure, and whether he knew about the OpenAI nonprofit’s recent initiatives.
“I don’t know what’s going on at OpenAI,” Musk testified.
Day four of Musk v. Altman, and the judge is now weighing whether to strike testimony from Jared Birchall — Musk's family office manager — specifically the parts touching on xAI's bid to acquire OpenAI. That's a significant piece of the record potentially going out the window. And meanwhile Musk testified under oath that he doesn't know 'what's going on at OpenAI' — the company he co-founded and is currently suing. That's either selective amnesia or the most expensive shrug in legal history. There's also the xAI distillation admission — Musk conceding on the stand that xAI used OpenAI's models to train its own. That's the kind of thing that tends to complicate your moral high ground when you're the plaintiff. OpenAI is absolutely wrong to go for-profit. But Musk building a competitor on their tech while suing them for betraying the mission? That's not principle, that's a business move with a press release attached. And Bloomberg Law put the week this way:
Elon Musk set out to tell a jury that his falling out with OpenAI was a simple tale of betrayal.
But the many questions that came up during the billionaire’s three days on the witness stand this week revealed the decade-long saga to be complicated — with twists and turns that cast some doubt on Musk’s version of events.
Bloomberg Law is reporting that Musk's first week on the stand was rougher than his camp probably hoped — three days of testimony that complicated his 'simple betrayal' narrative pretty significantly. Look, I think OpenAI sold out its mission — that's real. But Musk sitting there playing the wronged idealist when he apparently tried to fold the whole thing into his personal empire? That's not a great look for the plaintiff. Legally, the question is whether the conversion to for-profit breached the founding agreements — and that case may still have legs. But the jury is watching a man who wanted control of AI complain that someone else got control of AI. MIT Technology Review had another sharp read from inside the courtroom:
In the first week of the landmark trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI, Musk took the stand in a crisp black suit and tie and argued that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and president Greg Brockman had deceived him into bankrolling the company. Along the way, he warned that AI could destroy us all and sat through revelations that he had poached OpenAI employees for his own companies.
Week one of Musk v. Altman wrapped in Oakland, and the headline out of the courtroom — per MIT Tech Review — is that Elon Musk took the stand, said he was deceived into funding OpenAI, and then had to sit there while opposing counsel revealed that xAI trains Grok on OpenAI's own models. So he sued OpenAI for betraying the nonprofit mission... while quietly distilling their models into his competitor product. That's not a plaintiff, that's a confession with a filing fee. To be fair, Devin, 'distillation' and 'theft' are not the same thing legally — and Musk's core claim, that Altman and Brockman sold him on a nonprofit and then built a for-profit empire, is a real breach-of-contract theory. Whether the evidence holds is another question. Oh I think OpenAI absolutely bait-and-switched on the mission. I just don't think Elon Musk is the hero of that story — he wanted control, didn't get it, and now he's in a courtroom in a black suit playing the wounded idealist. You’ll find links to everything we covered today in the show notes, if you want to dig into the filings and courtroom reporting yourself.
That’s Musk v Altman Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.