By contrast, Musk did want total control, Altman testified, and he walked when he didn’t get it. And although Altman agreed that Musk had said he would quickly give up that control, Altman didn’t trust that, he testified. He emphasized that when he was at Y Combinator, an incubator for startups, he “had seen a lot of control fights,” where “no one wanted to give up power when things were going well,” The Verge reported.
Further, Altman testified that Musk had also indicated that he might never cede control. Altman claimed that when he asked Musk who might succeed him as OpenAI’s leader, Musk responded, “I haven’t thought about it a ton, but maybe control should pass to my children.”
That was a “particularly hair-raising moment,” Altman testified.
Musk tried to “kill” OpenAI, Altman says
After Molo’s cross-examination ended, Savitt got Altman to further explain a text exchange that Musk’s lawyer highlighted, where Altman told Musk that he couldn’t have done OpenAI without him.
Messages where Altman appears ingratiated to Musk seem to show that Musk did most of the heavy lifting when OpenAI was founded and therefore should be awarded damages up to $150 billion, which Musk intends to donate to OpenAI’s nonprofit.
But Altman has claimed that Musk’s math makes no sense, essentially reducing the contributions of the other co-founders and OpenAI’s leading researchers to “zero.” On the stand, he testified that where other co-founders spent “every waking hour” building OpenAI, Musk only dropped in every other week or so and was mostly available via text and email when needed.
Acknowledging the supposedly contradictory text to Musk, Altman testified that he has “many times” told Musk that he’s “grateful” for his help getting OpenAI off the ground. But ultimately, the best thing for OpenAI was for Musk to leave because his aggressive management style harmed morale and risked driving out talent. Notably, Musk nearly drove away a leading researcher after feeling unimpressed by an early presentation on a proto-ChatGPT model, OpenAI’s lawyers alleged.