- Sam Altman testified in the ongoing OpenAI trial
- He claimed that Elon Musk wanted “total control” of the company in its first year
- Altman alleged that Musk suggested he would pass OpenAI on to his children
Sam Altman’s time on the witness stand during Elon Musk’s OpenAI trial was no less heated than Musk’s own Terminator-infused claims, if less cinematic in references. He described Musk to jurors in Oakland, California, as a man unwilling to build OpenAI unless he could ultimately dominate it.
The OpenAI CEO alleged that Musk pushed aggressively for control in the company’s early years and resisted structures that distributed authority among multiple executives. According to Altman, Musk believed that only he could be trusted to make the difficult long-term decisions surrounding artificial intelligence.
Musk “felt very strongly that if we were going to form a for-profit, he needed to have total control of it initially,” Altman said. “He only trusted himself to make non-obvious decisions that would turn out to be correct.”
The testimony landed as one of the most dramatic moments yet in the closely watched Musk v. Altman trial, which has turned into a sprawling public spat about money, power, ego and who will shape the future of AI.
According to Altman, someone asked Musk what would happen to that control after his death. Musk replied, “I haven’t thought much about it, but maybe the control should pass to my children.”
For a company originally founded around the idea that advanced artificial intelligence would benefit humanity broadly, the exchange sounded downright feudal.
AI power struggle
The courtroom battle technically centers on Musk’s claim that OpenAI betrayed its original nonprofit mission through its commercial partnership with Microsoft. Musk claims the company evolved from a public interest research lab into a profit-driven artificial intelligence giant focused on commercial dominance rather than openness.
But the testimony unfolding in court increasingly suggests that the deeper conflict began years earlier and had less to do with nonprofit structures than fundamentally different ideas about control.
Altman’s version of events portrays Musk as someone who viewed concentrated authority as necessary to build artificial general intelligence safely and effectively. Altman pushed the opposite philosophy. He testified that one of OpenAI’s founding principles was that no single individual should have unchecked control over AGI systems, regardless of intent.
That distinction now feels central to the entire modern artificial intelligence industry. Power is increasingly centered around a handful of executives and companies, regardless of Altman’s goals. OpenAI itself became one of the most valuable and influential AI companies on Earth, in part due to huge outside investment and increasingly closed commercial products. Musk left OpenAI in 2018 before later launching xAI.
The irony of a lawsuit between these two, who once publicly framed OpenAI as a safeguard against concentrated AI power, is palpable. Altman described Musk as deeply skeptical of governance structures that diluted his authority. He testified that he had seen enough startup control disputes over the years to doubt that Musk would willingly surrender power later when a company succeeded.
AI control
The business conflict is framed in philosophical terms for a reason. The jurors hear a debate between competing visions of how the AI industry should work, as much as one about breach of contract.
Musk’s legal team argues that OpenAI abandoned transparency and the public good in pursuit of huge commercial success. Altman’s testimony suggests that Musk wanted personal authority from the beginning and was frustrated when he could not secure it.
As petty as some of it feels, the stakes are high in the lawsuit. Musk’s lawsuit threatens billions in potential damages and could reshape OpenAI’s corporate future if successful. But the testimony already reveals that all the loud arguments about advanced technology can often be a battle over who gets to control it.
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