Closing arguments begin in Elon Musk’s landmark lawsuit against OpenAI

Elon Musk accuses OpenAI of breaching charitable trust and prioritising profit over AI safety and nonprofit values.Lawyers for OpenAI and Elon Musk began closing arguments in a landmark trial that could impact the future of the ChatGPT maker.On Thursday, each side presented a concluding statement to jurors, who will decide whether OpenAI and its leaders profited from a venture that was meant to be a “charity”.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4Trump administration offers $100m in aid to Cuba in exchange for reformlist 2 of 4‘Never mess it up’: What Xi and Trump said on day one of Beijing talkslist 3 of 4Trump administration pledges $1.8bn in additional humanitarian aid to UNlist 4 of 4Jerome Powell: Steering the US Fed through COVID-19 and political pressuresend of listThe lawsuit was brought by Musk, the world’s richest man and the founder of a rival artificial intelligence (AI) model, Grok.Musk sued OpenAI, its CEO Sam Altman and its president Greg Brockman, alleging that the company strayed from its founding mission to build AI that was safe and beneficial to humanity.Musk was not present for the closing statements on Thursday, as he is currently in China on a diplomatic visit with United States President Donald Trump.His lawyer, Steven Molo, used his final remarks to accuse OpenAI of breaching its charitable trust by enriching investors and insiders at the nonprofit’s expense. He also sought to paint Altman as untrustworthy.“I confronted Sam Altman with the fact that five witnesses in this trial, all people that he’s known for years and worked with, called him a liar under oath. Liar’s a very powerful word in a courtroom,” Molo said.The five people Molo referenced were Musk; Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s former chief scientist; former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati; and former board members Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley. Musk invested $38m in OpenAI’s early years.“Sam Altman’s credibility is directly at issue in this case,” Molo said.The lawsuit also accuses Microsoft, which invested $1bn in OpenAI in 2019 and another $10bn in 2023, of aiding and abetting OpenAI’s wrongful conduct.