Sign up to see the future, today<\/p>\n
Can\u2019t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech<\/p>\n
Elon Musk is locked in a heated trial in a lawsuit he lodged against his rival OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman.<\/p>\n
Or at least, he\u2019s supposed to be. Despite the judge\u2019s explicit order that he be ready to testify in court again, the world\u2019s richest man has eloped to China with president Donald Trump on an official diplomatic visit, leaving his lawyers flailing.<\/p>\n
Today, each side gave their closing arguments. Steven Molo, Musk\u2019s lead counsel, began by apologizing on his client\u2019s behalf. \u201cHe\u2019s sorry he could not be here,\u201d Molo said, according to The Verge\u2018s courtroom reporting<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Molo then extolled the importance of jury duty, \u201cwhich is never a good sign in a closing statement,\u201d as the site\u2019s Elizabeth Lopatto quipped.<\/p>\n Both Musk and Altman have taken the witness stand during the trial. Because he might be expected to testify again, US district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers told Musk that he would be held in \u201crecall status,\u201d meaning he should be available to take the stand again if asked to.<\/p>\n According to an NBC News scoop<\/a> citing sources familiar with the matter, Musk never obtained permission from the judge to leave, and was still under recall status. Technically, Musk wasn\u2019t instructed not to travel, but he\u2019s still playing with fire, according to\u00a0Jeffrey Bellin, a law professor at Vanderbilt University. There\u2019s no hard-and-fast rule on how physically close a witness should be under recall status, and these restrictions are up to a judge. But the situation is still unusual, Bellin told NBC.<\/p>\n \u201cA typical witness would not leave the country if they were subject to recall,\u201d he added. \u201cIf I were the attorney, I would have made sure that if my witness is subject to recall and he\u2019s left the country, that the judge is OK with that.\u201d<\/p>\n Why Musk decided to bail is unclear. Maybe he couldn\u2019t pass up an opportunity to reassert himself in China, a country where he\u2019s long had important business relationships and has many admirers, but where in recent years his automaker has fallen behind domestic competitors.<\/p>\n His disappearing act also comes as the court battle has swung against him. On the witness stand he was testy and combative<\/a>, calling the questioning \u201cdefinitionally complex<\/a>\u201d while completely failing to maintain a confident face.\u00a0<\/p>\n He contradicted his previous claim that Tesla was building AGI, fibbed<\/a> about the amount of money he gave OpenAI, proudly admitted that he \u201cdidn\u2019t read the fine print\u201d on a term sheet Altman shared about restructuring OpenAI into for-profit controlled by a non-profit, and stumbled when he had to explain that former OpenAI board member Shivon Zilis, once Musk\u2019s chief of staff, was also the mother of some of his children. The judge even had to order Musk to stop tweeting about the trial, which he surprisingly abided.<\/p>\n Legal snubs aren\u2019t a first for Musk. Earlier this year, he blew off a summons from French prosecutors<\/a> for a voluntary interview as part of an investigation into his AI chatbot\u2019s Grok digital undressing of minors.<\/p>\n