“Are you completely trustworthy?” attorney Steven Molo asked Sam Altman in court this afternoon. “I believe so,” Altman responded.
The OpenAI CEO, in a muted suit and gray patterned tie, took the witness stand Tuesday, moving from being an occasional audience member to the main character in a courtroom drama that has gripped Silicon Valley for the last two and a half weeks. His testimony bookended the trial that began with that of his antagonist, Elon Musk. I’m Tom Dotan, filling in for Julia, and I’ve been in the courtroom from the beginning. While it was totally expected that Musk’s attorneys were going to make Altman’s character a main issue in their case, it was still brutal to watch the 41-year-old step into the firing line.
“You don’t know?” Molo asked, regarding Altman’s nonanswer about his trustworthiness. “I’ll amend my answer to yes,” Altman replied.
On the stand, Musk appeared ambitious, future gazing—and more than a little embittered. Altman, meanwhile, was composed, confident, and prone to selective memory. He claimed to not know what former OpenAI board members had said in their depositions about why they voted to remove him. They called him deceptive and untrustworthy, Molo reminded him.
As any reporter who’s covered the tech world for a long time knows, Altman is an extremely savvy player when it comes to media relations. He’s deeply aware of how people view him. As Molo continued his scathing questioning of Altman, you could see Marc Toberoff, the architect of Musk’s case against Altman, give a little smirk. During a break, I caught Altman fixing his hair in the bathroom before returning to the stand. With the jury days away from deliberating on this case, it’s unclear what will stick in their minds. While their decision should, in theory, be a matter of law, in practice it often ends up being about whom jurors trust more. On that count, both Musk and Altman may end up losing.
Mentioned in this issue: Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Dua Lipa, Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, OpenAI, James Cameron, xAI, Larry Page, William Savitt, SpaceX, Marc Toberoff, and many others.
