OpenAI CEO Sam Altman spent roughly four hours on the witness stand Tuesday defending the company’s shift from a nonprofit to a for-profit model,directly rebutting Elon Musk’s claims that he and co-founder Greg Brockman “stole a charity” when they restructured the artificial intelligence lab.

"I think it’s wonderful that through the hard work of thousands of people … we’ve been able to create one of largest nonprofits in the world, [and] that it has this role to protect the technology and the impact on the world," Altman told the court.

The testimony came during the third week of Musk’s federal lawsuit against Altman, Brockman, and OpenAI in U.S. District Court in Oakland, California.Musk, who helped found OpenAI in 2015 but left its board in 2018, accuses the pair of betraying the original mission to develop safe AI for humanityafter he provided tens of millions in early funding. He is seeking Altman’s and Brockman’s removal from leadership, more than $150 billion in damages, and the unwinding of OpenAI’s 2019 conversion to a for-profit structure now backed heavily by Microsoft. Musk has accused the pair ofbilking him out of $38 million in donations, then restructuring the nonprofit lab they coufounded by exclusively licensing their flagship product to Microsoft. This, Musk's team argues,betrayed OpenAI's founding mission to operate an open-source charitythat would counter the existential risks of profit-driven AI.

Altman told the jury that Musk had pushed for significant personal control from the outset,including an early proposal that he receive 90 percent equity in the company - an idea Altman said made him “extremely uncomfortable.”He also rejected Musk’s suggestion of a merger with Tesla,saying it would have compromised OpenAI’s independence because “Tesla needs to serve its customers and sell cars.”

On the central issue of the for-profit conversion, Altman testified that Musk either supported the move or did not oppose it.“Quite the opposite,” he said when asked whether Musk had resisted the change. Altman portrayed Musk’s current lawsuit as driven by “sour grapes” after Musk launched the rival xAI lab, attempted to poach OpenAI researchers, and engaged in what Altman described as “business interference.”

Musk, meanwhile, told the court "You can’t just steal a charity."

Altman shot back when his turn came: "No, you can’t steal it, but Mr. Musk did try to kill it."

As theEpoch Timesnotesfurther, Altman said Musk abandoned the company in 2018 to start his own for-profit competitor, xAI, when other founders rejected his bid to take full control of the operation.

“I thought incredibly highly of Elon, and felt like he had abandoned us, not come through on his promises,” Altman said, suggesting Elon’s withdrawal of support jeopardized the mission. “We were left for dead.”

He acknowledged Musk was a critical contributor but added, “I also wish he would stop doing what he is doing here, which in my opinion is jealousy as we get more and more successful.”

Source: ZeroHedge News