I know that we’re thinking maybe ACCC v Coles\/Woolworths is the ‘trial of the century’ but another early contender might be about to start in the US.<\/p>\n
According to Reuters Elon Musk’s action against Sam Altman is about to open, as the process of selecting a jury begins.<\/p>\n
Documents reveal tensions among OpenAI founders and leadership doubtsMusk says OpenAI betrayed nonprofit mission, seeks damages and leadership changesOpenAI and Microsoft deny collusion, say Musk wanted control<\/p>\n
The bitter legal fight between Elon Musk and the leading artificial intelligence firm, OpenAI, led by Sam Altman, may come down to a few pages in one executive’s personal diary.<\/p>\n
“This is the only chance we have to get out from Elon,” wrote\u00a0Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president and a co-founder, in the fall of 2017.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs he the \u2018glorious leader\u2019 that I would pick?\u201d<\/p>\n
Brockman’s diary entry is part of the thousands of pages of internal documents revealed in court since Musk, one of the original co-founders of OpenAI, sued the company, its chief executive Altman and Brockman in 2024.<\/p>\n
Musk is seeking $150 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, one of its largest investors, according to a person involved in the case, with proceeds going to OpenAI\u2019s charitable arm.<\/p>\n
Jury selection for the trial began on Monday in the Oakland, California, federal court, with Altman in attendance.<\/p>\n
One prospective juror lamented that AI added to her workload instead of decreasing it, while another said, “my strongest opinion is that Elon doesn’t care about people.”<\/p>\n
Opening statements are expected on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The battle begins<\/p>\n
The documents offer a rare window into egos and personalities that have shaped OpenAI as it evolved from a non-profit research lab in Brockman\u2019s apartment to a tech giant worth more than $850 billion.<\/p>\n
They also shed light on how the CEOs with the most power to shape generative AI think about the technology. <\/p>\n
The trial risks complicating OpenAI’s plans for a potential initial public offering by casting doubt on its leadership. A drumbeat of unflattering disclosures could also intensify Americans’ growing pessimism about AI technology more broadly.<\/p>\n
The case centers on Musk\u2019s claim that OpenAI, Altman and Microsoft betrayed OpenAI’s original mission as a non-profit to benefit humanityby forming a for-profit entity in March 2019, 13 months after Musk left the OpenAI board.<\/p>\n
Musk said the defendants kept him in the dark about their plans, exploited his name and financial support to create a “wealth machine” for themselves, and owe damages for having conned him and the public.<\/p>\n
He also wants OpenAI to revert to a non-profit, for Altman and Brockman to be removed as officers, and for Altman to be removed from its board, among other measures. <\/p>\n
OpenAI countered that Musk is motivated by a compulsion to control OpenAI and prop up his own AI lab xAI, which he founded in 2023 shortly after OpenAI launched ChatGPT and sparked the AI boom.<\/p>\n
The company says Musk was involved in discussions to create OpenAI’s new structure and demanded to be CEO.<\/p>\n
Microsoft, also a defendant, denies that it colluded with OpenAI and says it teamed up with OpenAI only after Musk left.<\/p>\n
In a post on X on Monday, OpenAI said: “The truth and the law are on our side. This lawsuit has always been a baseless and jealous bid to derail a competitor.”<\/p>\n
Musk also discussed OpenAI on X.<\/p>\n
“I started it, funded it, recruited critical talent and taught them everything I know about how to make a startup successful FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD,” he wrote. “Then they stole the charity.”<\/p>\n
Heavy hitters in Silicon Valley including Musk, Altman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella are expected to testify in person.<\/p>\n
The trial comes at a sensitive time for both sides.<\/p>\n
OpenAI faces unprecedented competition from rivals including Anthropic, and is spending billions on computational resources. It is also preparing for a potential blockbuster IPO that could value the company at $1 trillion, Reuters has reported. <\/p>\n
Musk\u2019s companies face similar pressures. His xAI trails far behind OpenAI in usage.<\/p>\n
– Deepa Seetharaman and Jonathan Stempel of Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I know that we’re thinking maybe ACCC v Coles\/Woolworths is the ‘trial of the century’ but another early…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2001,64,63,166,2009,99,2005,164,160,2010,2006,2002,1491],"class_list":{"0":"post-634933","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-asx","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-dollar","12":"tag-bitcoin","13":"tag-business","14":"tag-dow-jones","15":"tag-economy","16":"tag-live-blog","17":"tag-live-update","18":"tag-nyse","19":"tag-share-market","20":"tag-wall-street"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}