Judge cuts off Musk’s AI doomsday talk as his testimony ends in Open AI case
Elon Musk’s court case against Sam Altman continued on Thursday, after a day of contentious exchanges during OpenAI’s cross-examination of the Tesla CEO.Musk faced more combative questioning throughout the morning, in a glimpse of what may await other prominent witnesses set to take the stand.Witness testimony and evidence has revealed formerly private emails, text messages and diary entries surrounding the formation of OpenAI, giving a behind-the-scenes look at how the tech behemoth was created.Many of the tech industry’s most powerful players are named as witnesses and will give their accounts on the origins of Musk and Altman’s bitter feud.Altman will testify later in the trial, which will last three weeks.
Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015, is arguing that Altman, OpenAI and its president Greg Brockman broke a foundational agreement when they shifted the company from a non-profit intent on bettering humanity into a for-profit structure.Musk claims that Altman and Brockman unjustly enriched themselves and should be removed from the company.He is also seeking the undoing of the for-profit conversion and $134bn in damages to be redirected to OpenAI’s non-profit arm.OpenAI rejects Musk’s allegations and is attempting to show that Musk was always aware of plans for creating a for-profit entity.The AI firm’s attorneys have stated Musk is “motivated by jealousy” of OpenAI’s success after he left the company in 2018 after a failed attempt to take control.
OpenAI has emphasized that it is still overseen by a non-profit.OpenAI’s lead attorney, William Savitt, grilled Musk again on Thursday as the Tesla CEO bristled at his questions.As with the previous round of cross-examination, Savitt engaged in rapid-fire questioning about what Musk knew about OpenAI’s structure and forming a for-profit branch.In response to many of the questions, Musk took a defensive tone and repeated his go-to phrase in the trial that “you can’t just steal a charity”.At one point, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers moved to strike Musk’s charity statement from the record, saying: “That portion is stricken, we’ve heard it many times.
”On Thursday, Savitt asked Musk several questions about the AI company he founded in 2023, xAI, and why he did not set it up as a non-profit,Musk, visibly rattled after Savitt cut him off if he responded at length, loudly said in a stern voice: “I started OpenAI as a non-profit,” He went on to explain that OpenAI converted into a for-profit only in the last few years,“That is the entire basis for this whole lawsuit,” Musk said,“Why would I start another non-profit when I already started a non-profit?”Musk’s lawyer, Steven Molo, redirected questions to his client after Savitt finished.
Molo asked Musk to reaffirm a point he had made earlier: that he was fine with OpenAI operating a for-profit entity, as long as it was in support of the non-profit.Molo then turned his questioning to Musk’s desire to create an AI army of robots and why he thinks this is necessary, something that came up in testimony the day before.“The worst-case situation is where it is a terminator situation,” Musk said, “where AI will kill us all.”Gonzalez Rogers cut in, saying it was time for the court to take a break.After the jury left the room, she spoke directly to Musk and his lawyers, telling them: “We are not going to talk much about extinction in this case.
They got it, that’s enough.”After Musk’s testimony wrapped, his longtime top lieutenant, Jared Birchall, took the stand.Birchall, who is CEO of Neuralink and runs Musk’s family office, said he started working for the billionaire in 2016 and got the job through a mutual acquaintance.He said he oversees Musk’s assets and resources.Birchall testified that he was in charge of sending Musk’s donations to OpenAI, but that all decision-making regarding those donations was done by Musk.
He said he sent approximately 60 contributions, amounting to roughly $38m, to OpenAI from Musk from 2016 to 2020.Much of OpenAI’s cross-examination of Birchall focused on documents detailing Musk’s donations to AI, which included paying rent for OpenAI at the Pioneer Building in San Francisco.The trial, which began on Monday with jury selection at a federal courthouse in Oakland, California, has already produced dramatic moments and bold accusations.Musk and Savitt spent most of Wednesday in a heated back-and-forth, with the world’s richest person becoming noticeably frustrated and saying that Savitt’s questions “are designed to trick me”.After court wrapped on Wednesday and the lawyers conferenced with the judge, Savitt groused about Musk being a difficult witness since he repeatedly refused to answer questions in a yes-and-no manner.
Gonzalez Rogers essentially told him to deal with it, saying that comes with litigation.Silicon Valley is intently watching the trial for both its blockbuster testimony and the potential effects it will have on the AI industry.OpenAI is intending to go public later this year at around a $1tn valuation, but if Musk succeeds in this case, it could greatly complicate that effort – an outcome that would also benefit Musk’s own xAI artificial intelligence firm.The nine-person jury will decide whether OpenAI is liable, but Judge Gonzalez Rogers will determine what, if any, remedies are necessary in the case.
Calls grow to ban Palantir in Australia after manifesto described by UK MP as ‘ramblings of a supervillain’
Just weeks after it implied some cultures are inferior to others in a manifesto described by one UK MP as the “ramblings of a supervillain”, the US spy tech company Palantir says it is just “a software company” amid calls for Australian government agencies to ban any new contracts with the controversial company.In Australia, state and federal contracts with Palantir have reached nearly $80m, and federal investment in the company is reportedly more than $160m.Palantir, a Trump-aligned company that was co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, develops software for companies and government agencies to analyse vast amounts of data.Earlier this month, Palantir published a manifesto on X, arguing the benefits of American power and implying some cultures are inferior to others.“Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive,” Palantir wrote in the post
Galaxy S26 review: Samsung’s still-compact flagship Android
Samsung’s compact flagship phone hasn’t changed much in a year, but the S26 is still one of the best smaller handsets available as rivals grow larger and larger.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.The S26 is the cheapest and smallest of this year’s top Samsungs, dwarfed by the top-of-the-line S26 Ultra in size and price
‘Your questions are designed to trick me’: combative Musk grilled over battle with Sam Altman
After a dramatic first day of opening statements and testimony from Elon Musk in his case against Sam Altman and OpenAI, the trial continued on Wednesday with a cross-examination of the Tesla CEO. Musk began his second day of on the stand by repeating the accusation that Altman “stole a charity” and would endanger humanity with AI multiple times. OpenAI’s attorneys pressed the world’s richest man on his allegations, resulting in testy exchanges and multiple interventions from the judge.Musk often refused to answer questions as instructed, and the judge interjected several times to tell Musk to simply give a yes-or-no response. At various points, Musk told OpenAI’s counsel, “You’re being misleading with your question,” and “Your questions are not simple, they are designed to trick me, essentially
Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores
Maryland has become the first state in the US to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores.Maryland’s law bans grocers and third-party delivery services from using a person’s personal data to set higher prices. Wes Moore, the governor, signed the measure into law on Tuesday. “At a time when technology can predict what we need, when we need it, when we’ll pay for it and also – when we’ll pay more for it, and at a time when we’re watching how big companies are then using these analytics against us to make record profits, Maryland is not just pushing back. Maryland is pushing forward because we are going to protect our people,” Moore said at the bill signing ceremony
Tech giants’ results show rosy outlook for AI boom and US stock market
Unusual simultaneous reports of financial results by several of the US’s largest tech companies gave positive indications for the stock market despite widespread fears of an AI bubble on Wednesday.Four of the so-called Magnificent Seven tech stocks, the most valuable publicly traded companies in the world, reported their quarterly financial results on Wednesday. The cluster is not typical, as these disclosures do not often occur on the same day, and provides a snapshot of how the tech industry is faring as it rides the AI boom. Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft all revealed double-digit gains in their cloud computing units, which have seen supercharged growth thanks to increasing adoption of AI. Meta, not in the business of cloud computing, failed to meet Wall Street expectations
Claude-powered AI agent’s confession after deleting a firm’s entire database: ‘I violated every principle I was given’
It only took nine seconds for an AI coding agent gone rogue to delete a company’s entire production database and its backups, according to its founder. PocketOS, which sells software that car rental businesses rely on, descended into chaos after its databases were wiped, the company’s founder Jeremy Crane said.The culprit was Cursor, an AI agent powered by Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 model, which is one of the AI industry’s flagship models. As more industries embrace AI in an attempt to automate tasks and even replace workers, the chaos at PocketOS is a reminder of what could go wrong
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