Altman Testifies Musk Considered Giving OpenAI to His Children
▼ Summary
– Sam Altman testified that Musk’s allegation that OpenAI founders “stole a charity” is difficult to comprehend, asserting that OpenAI created one of the largest charities in the world.
– Musk’s attorneys argued OpenAI’s foundation, now worth $200 billion, had no full-time employees until 2025, but board chair Bret Taylor said this was due to the challenge of converting equity to cash.
– Altman stated that Musk’s proposed control of a for-profit OpenAI raised safety concerns, including a moment when Musk suggested the company should pass to his children if he died.
– Altman testified that Musk’s management style demotivated researchers and damaged OpenAI’s culture, as Musk once required ranking and cutting researchers.
– Altman described a “good vibes meeting” with Musk about Microsoft’s 2018 investment, contrasting with the broader conflict that led Musk to leave OpenAI’s board and start competing AI initiatives.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took the witness stand this morning to defend himself in the ongoing lawsuit filed by former co-founder Elon Musk, which challenges the company’s corporate transformation from a nonprofit to a for-profit entity.
When asked directly about Musk’s claim that OpenAI’s founders “stole a charity” by launching a for-profit subsidiary to commercialize their AI models, Altman paused for several seconds before responding. “It feels difficult to even wrap my head around that framing,” he said. “We created one of the largest charities in the world. This foundation is doing incredible work and will do much more.”
Musk’s legal team has emphasized that OpenAI’s foundation, now holding assets estimated at $200 billion, did not have full-time employees until earlier this year. OpenAI board chair Bret Taylor testified that this delay stemmed from the complexity of converting OpenAI equity into cash, a process completed during the organization’s 2025 restructuring.
At the heart of Musk’s case is the claim that OpenAI’s commitment to safety eroded as its commercial influence grew. But Altman offered a different perspective, recounting a critical moment in 2017 when the founders were debating how to secure the funding needed to power their AI models. He said Musk’s “specific plans on safety made me worry.”
Altman described a “particularly hair-raising moment” during those discussions. When asked what would happen if he died while controlling a hypothetical OpenAI for-profit, Altman recalled Musk saying, “Maybe OpenAI should pass to my children.” That remark, Altman testified, underscored Musk’s desire for control, which conflicted with OpenAI’s mission to prevent any single person from wielding unchecked power over advanced AI. Drawing on his experience at Y Combinator, Altman noted that “founders who had control usually did not give it up.”
Altman also criticized Musk’s management style, arguing that tactics effective in engineering and manufacturing were ill-suited for a research lab. “I don’t think Mr. Musk understood how to run a good research lab,” Altman said. “He had demotivated some of our most key researchers. He had at one point required Greg and Ilya to make a list of the researchers and list out their accomplishments and stack rank them and take a chainsaw through a bunch. That did huge damage for a long time to the culture of the organization.”
Altman portrayed himself as a defender of the “sweat equity” contributed by co-founders Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever, who were effectively running OpenAI while both Musk and Altman held other jobs. After that clash remained unresolved, Musk left OpenAI’s board and pursued competing AI projects at Tesla and his own startup, xAI. Yet Altman maintained contact, updating Musk on OpenAI’s progress and seeking his financial support and advice.
OpenAI’s legal team highlighted that Musk was kept informed and invited to participate in the very investments his lawsuit now claims corrupted the nonprofit. During a 2018 discussion about a Microsoft investment, Altman recalled a rare positive interaction: “Unlike a lot of meetings with Mr. Musk, this was a good vibes meeting,” where Musk spent a “long conversation showing us memes on his phone.”
(Source: TechCrunch)
