SAN FRANCISCO - Lawyers for Elon Musk and OpenAI presented closing arguments in a blockbuster trial where the verdict could hobble ChatGPT's parent company in the breakneck race for AI supremacy.
The three-week trial in Oakland, outside San Francisco, has seen a parade of Silicon Valley titans take the stand.
The world's richest person, Musk, is suing OpenAI over its pivot away from a scrappy non-profit into the $850 billion juggernaut behind ChatGPT.
Musk claims OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman improperly used a $38 million injection he had hoped would sustain OpenAI as a research lab dedicated to developing AI technology for the good of humanity.
For the nine-person jury, as Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers noted, their decision may come down to a simple question: who should they believe among the bickering billionaires?
"A non-profit devoted to the safe development of artificial intelligence, open-sourced as practical, for the benefit of humanity. You know, we're supposed to buy that," quipped Musk's attorney Steven Molo in his closing argument on Thursday, slamming Altman's integrity.
OpenAI attorney Sarah Eddy countered with an attack on Musk.
"Even the people who work for him, even the mother of his children, can't back his story," she said, referring to Shivon Zilis, a business associate of Musk with whom he has four children, who testified about her role as an intermediary between the tech executives.
Musk, who was visiting China on Thursday as part of US President Donald Trump's delegation, left OpenAI in 2018 and continues to pursue lucrative AI projects through his company SpaceX.
- AFP