Lawyers for Elon Musk and OpenAI presented their closing arguments this week, and now it’s up to the jury to decide whether OpenAI did anything wrong by becoming a little more for profit organization.
But as Kirsten Korosec, Sean O’Kane and I observed in the latest episode of TechCrunch Equity PodcastAn important topic in the final days of the trial was Whether OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is trustworthy – for example, Musk’s lawyer, Steve Molo, questioned Altman about whether statements he had made during congressional testimony were truthful.
Kirsten noted that Musk has made many misleading statements on his ownand that confidence isn’t just a problem for Altman.
“This is a fundamental question (for) many tech journalists, policymakers and increasingly consumers about all AI labs,” he said. “It really comes down to trust, because we don’t necessarily have the necessary information: these are all private companies, there is still a lot behind the veil.”
Read on for a preview of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.
Antonio Ha: (The End of Judgment) led to this really provocative headline from one of our writers, Tim Fernholz, (which) simply says: “Who trusts Sam Altman?” Does anyone want to try to answer this?
Kirsten Korosec: Yes, Anthony, I’m going to tell you again. Do you trust Sam Altman?
Antonio: It’s an interesting question because it seems like a crazy question to discuss in a journalistic context, but that’s actually the core of the trial, in many ways.
Sean O’Kane: That’s not a yes.
Antonio: And it actually seems to be (at) the core of understanding a lot of what happened at OpenAI, especially this big fight for executive power that they now call The Blip.
It seems like a lot of people have worked with Altman. don’t trust him. And he’s acknowledged it a little bit, because he’ll talk about the fact that He acknowledges that he has been conflict-averse.telling people what they want to hear, and you’re trying to work on that.
I mean, it sounds plausible and I can understand how that can lead to misunderstandings in some situations. (But) I’m also a very conflict-averse person and I’d like to think that if any of this went to trial, people wouldn’t be asking, “Is Anthony Ha trustworthy?”
be: It’s not a yes yet!
Kirsten: I think people would say you’re trustworthy. I will say that that question, while provocative, does not simply sum up what this trial was about. I would go even further and say this is a fundamental question (for) many tech journalists, policymakers and increasingly consumers about all AI labs. It really comes down to trust, because we don’t necessarily have the idea: these are all private companies, there is still a lot behind the veil.
Maybe when they all go public we can take a look, but it’s fundamentally about trust and misuse, and do we believe in the intent? And what I would say is that sometimes intention can be valuable, noble, and yet misused. It may still end up as a shit show. I think it’s more about who trusts Sam Altman (although that was very interesting in this test) but rather that larger question that we can apply to the entire industry.
be: I’ll say it: I don’t trust him. But you know, I don’t trust most people, so I guess that’s just the base.
We’ll see where this goes. The trial concludes today. I have been very curious to know how the jury decides all this. I think at the beginning of this, a big motivator was Elon Musk trying to throw mud at a perceived rival and someone he feels slighted him. And I don’t know if we know enough yet to say that that was completely achieved and whether or not he has a chance of winning. But I think all these people came out of this looking a little worse.
Antonio: And just to be specific, the reason this is coming up this week is because (Altman) was on the stand and they were basically questioning him about some statements that he made in the past, in testimony before (Congress), basically saying that he didn’t have any equity in OpenAI. And that’s not true because he had a stake through Y Combinator, which he used to run. And he tried to brush it off by saying, “I guess everyone understands what it means to be a passive investor in a venture capital fund.” And I think (Elon Musk’s) lawyer, somewhat fairly, said, “Really? You think the congressman who was interviewing you knew that?”
Kirsten: Yeah, I mean, I was playing the whole semantics game. What I found so interesting about (this) is the style in which Sam Altman answered the questions (compared to) Elon Musk on the stand.
So, Elon Musk, in many, many, many scenarios and many cases, we can point to the fact that he posted something on Twitter that was a lie or a bit of a lie, and on the stand he corrected the record. So there’s a history of, I would say, untruthfulness, lying, blatant or not, in Elon Musk’s world, but the way he dealt with it was incredibly combative and very different from Altman, who really took this (attitude of) “I’m working on it” and tried to come across as kind of affable and I don’t know if it’ll work for him.
Because it all comes down to the central facts and hopefully that’s what the jury pays attention to. But I thought that was really interesting: they were both liars, but the way they approached it was very different.
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