OpenAI CEO Sam Altman made an unexpected appearance in a California courtroom Monday as jury selection in his high-stakes legal feud with Elon Musk kicked off.
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Altman, who wore a dark-colored suit and white shirt, was spotted inside the Oakland courtroom, where some potential jurors in the federal civil trial shared unfavorable views about artificial intelligence — and Musk, the world’s richest man.
“Elon doesn’t care about people, just like our president,” one prospective juror told US District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.
The man, who works in construction and described himself as a “meme junky” and a “dying breed” who still gets print newspaper subscriptions, added that he thinks Musk only cares about money.
Another prospective juror who works for the city of Oakland said he has a strong opinion about Musk. He said that he would do his “best” to approach the case without bias, even though he called Musk a “jerk” in a pre-trial jury questionnaire.
Musk was not in attendance for day one of the trial between two of the tech industry’s most powerful billionaires. Since it is a civil trial, the parties are not required to appear unless they are testifying. Up until now, Musk and Altman have largely left the matter to their lawyers, aside from the occasional online jab.
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The Tesla CEO sued OpenAI, Altman, and OpenAI president Greg Brockman two years ago, alleging that they intentionally “deceived” him into cofounding the company with them in 2015.
Musk alleges in his lawsuit that he poured tens of millions into OpenAI to support its founding mission as a nonprofit dedicated to developing AI for the public’s benefit, only for that mission to later be abandoned, in part, through the company’s partnership with Microsoft. Microsoft is also named as a defendant in Musk’s lawsuit.
The lawsuit seeks more than $100 billion in damages, along with sweeping changes to the structure of the $850 billion company behind ChatGPT. The case comes as OpenAI is reportedly preparing for an initial public offering.
Earlier Monday, Musk and OpenAI traded barbs on Musk’s X platform about the case, with Musk referring to Altman as “Scam Altman” and OpenAI ripping Musk’s lawsuit as a “baseless and jealous bid to derail a competitor.”
Musk is expected to testify in the weeks-long trial, along with Altman and other tech execs like Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
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Some potential jurors questioned on Monday told the court that they had reservations surrounding AI.
A registered nurse said she doesn’t trust AI and isn’t a fan of how the rapidly advancing technology is being used in the workplace.
“It’s just giving me more work to do,” said the woman who explained that her employer uses AI tools to process patient records that she still has to review for errors.
One woman who works in the psychiatric patient care unit at Stanford University said she had some concerns about AI but could approach the case with an open mind.
“I personally don’t use it much because I do find that I have to double check everything, and at this point, I might as well do it myself,” said the woman, who was ultimately chosen to sit on the jury.
A different juror prospect, a PhD student in genetics, said she has a ChatGPT subscription and uses it, along with Anthropic’s Claude, to write code and emails.
Concerns of the juror prospects were also reflected outside the courthouse, where protesters gathered to demonstrate against AI. A person in a robot suit wore a sign that said, “Altman’s AI enslaver.” A giant inflatable tube figure read: “Elon sucks.”
By the end of Monday, nine jurors were selected for the trial. Opening arguments are set to begin Tuesday.
At one point, Musk’s attorney, Steven Molo, asked the judge to dismiss a juror prospect who called Musk a “greedy, racist, homophobic piece of garbage” in her questionnaire and another who wrote that Musk is a “world-class jerk.”
“Look, the reality is that people don’t like him,” the judge told Musk’s legal team about their client. “But that doesn’t mean that Americans, nevertheless, can’t have integrity for the judicial process.”
