Sam Altman said Elon Musk repeatedly made “hair-raising” demands for control over OpenAI, including passing it on to his children, as the AI lab’s chief executive took the stand in a legal battle with the world’s richest man.
Altman on Tuesday told a jury in Oakland, California, that he feared Musk would seek “vengeance” after they fell out over the direction of the AI lab they co-founded as a charity in 2015.
OpenAI has argued Musk had no objection to converting the start-up into a for-profit business as long as he had control, and his claims that Altman sold out its non-profit mission are part of a long-running campaign of retribution.