Elon Musk’s legal fight against ChatGPT-maker OpenAI entered its second day with the Tesla CEO taking a stand. Testifying before a nine-person jury, Musk highlighted his long-standing concerns against the misuse of artificial intelligence. He said that started OpenAI to keep AI away ‘from the bad guys’. The billionaire further revealed that he personally warned former US President Barack Obama about the dangers of AI. During a one-on-one meeting with Obama in 2015, Musk said he “spent an hour” warning about dangers of AI, which he said “no one was really using” at the time. But Obama felt AI was not good enough (back then) to seem scary smart, he stated.“I thought it was extremely important to have a counterbalance to Google,” Musk said about co-founding OpenAI. “Google did not seem to care about AI safety at that time,” he stated.Musk’s remarks also come at a time when concerns around artificial intelligence are being raised by several US leaders. Senator Bernie Sanders has said he is “fearful of a lot” when it comes to AI, calling it “the most consequential technology in the history of humanity” that will “transform” the US and the world. Musk’s reference to his earlier warning to Barack Obama highlights how such concerns about AI risks have been raised for years.
Elon Musk’s testimony against OpenAI
Elon Musk opened his testimony against Sam Altman by going through his background stating how after being raised in South Africa, he came to Canada for college with “2,500 in Canadian travelers’ checks and a bag of clothes and books”. From there, he went to the US, working from Zip2 to PayPal to the current, more familiar slate of companies he now runs.His main argument is that OpenAI abandoned its founding principles, and that precedent could reshape both AI governance and charitable trust. He emphasized OpenAI’s original goal: AI for the good of humanity, not profit-driven control. Elon thought in the early days, OpenAI’s corporate structure would be a nonprofit funded initially with donations, but there could potentially be a parallel for-profit that is owned by the nonprofit and funds the nonprofit: “We (Sam Altman and Elon) were in agreement that OpenAI would be a 501c3 charity.”
