Elon Musk vs OpenAI trial turns personal as judge blocks AI extinction debate from courtroom

Is A.I. a Threat to Humanity? Not in This Trial.

Since he had a testy fireside chat about artificial intelligence with the Google co-founder Larry Page more than a decade ago, Elon Musk has had one big fear: that A.I. could eventually destroy humanity. It was one reason, he has often said, that he started the nonprofit A.I. lab OpenAI with Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and a group of A.I. researchers. They were going to build the technology safely for the benefit of humanity and to protect the world from people like Mr. Page, who didn't believe A.I. was a threat. But the nine jurors deciding Mr. Musk's landmark lawsuit against OpenAI probably won't hear much about his nightmares. Before he returned to the witness stand for a third day on Thursday, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who is presiding over the trial, told Mr. Musk's lawyer that she didn't want talk of A.I.'s existential threat to humanity to seep into the trial. "We are not going to get into issues of catastrophe and extinction," Judge Gonzalez Rogers said. When Musk's lead counsel, Steven Molo, started arguing with OpenAI's lawyer over the issue, the judge raised her voice, insisting that they stop bickering. "I suspect that there are a number of people who do not want to put the future of humanity in Mr. Musk's hands," the judge said. "But we're not going to get into that. We just are not going to have this whole thing explode for the world to view it." Whether the lawyers can discuss "human extinction" is important to Mr. Musk's case. His lawyers have gone to great lengths to stress the existential nature of his concerns, in an effort to underscore that he is trying to protect the world from what OpenAI could create, not just hurt a competitor to his own A.I. start-up. Judge Gonzalez Rogers's decision to eliminate that line of questioning could be a blow to Mr. Musk.

'This is a real risk, we all could die as a result of artificial intelligence' -- the OpenAI trial took a dramatic turn as Elon Musk and Sam Altman faced off over AI's real-world danger

* Elon Musk and Sam Altman's trial veered into AI extinction debate * The judge shut down claims AI could pose a real-world threat * The case could reshape OpenAI and the future of ChatGPT "This is a real risk, we all could die as a result of artificial intelligence." That stark warning cut through a tense courtroom this week as Elon Musk's legal battle with Sam Altman took an unexpected turn -- briefly shifting from a corporate dispute into a debate about whether AI could wipe out humanity. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers quickly shut it down, reminding Musk's attorney, Steven Molo, to stay focused on the issue at trial, delivering a withering rebuttal: "It's ironic your client, despite these risks, is creating a company that is in the exact space," Rogers said. "There are some people who do not want to put the future of humanity in Mr Musk's hands. But we're not going to get into that business." The Musk vs Altman feud The Musk vs OpenAI trial is the latest chapter in a feud between rival CEOs Musk and Altman that has been building for years. Much of it has played out through public comments and online jabs, but it has now escalated into a month-long federal court case in California. At the heart of Musk's claim is the allegation that OpenAI -- the company he co-founded in 2015 -- drifted away from its original non-profit mission. He argues that Altman betrayed public trust by turning the organization into a profit-driven company. Musk has also named OpenAI president Greg Brockman and Microsoft as part of the case, claiming they played a role in the company's shift toward commercialization -- allegations Microsoft denies. The judge is right, of course. This case isn't about whether AI should exist. It's about the future direction of OpenAI. A Musk victory could trigger a major shake-up at the company and potentially even lead to Altman's removal as CEO. But the fact that extinction came up at all points to the real story here -- whether AI could pose an existential threat to humanity. An old debate The technology being debated in abstract terms is already here, embedded in tools like ChatGPT and rapidly spreading into everyday life. The people at the center of the case are the same figures shaping the future of AI itself, and moments like this week's courtroom exchange point to unresolved issues beyond a corporate battle. Even as AI becomes more embedded in everyday products, there is still no consensus among its creators about how risky it really is. Some frame it as a transformative tool that will improve productivity, creativity, and access to information. Others continue to warn, sometimes in uncompromising terms, about long-term dangers that are harder to define, let alone regulate. The same companies racing to roll out smarter, faster AI tools are also, at times, the ones raising concerns about where that race could lead. That tension is not new -- but it is rarely expressed this directly, and almost never in a legal setting like this. The trial is expected to run for several weeks, with billions of dollars and the future structure of OpenAI on the line. But it also captures the central contradiction of the AI era right now: the people building the technology are still debating how dangerous it might be -- even as they continue to build it at speed. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button! And of course you can also follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp too.

Are we losing our minds to AI?

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers didn't mince words in court this week while adjudicating the ongoing trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI in Oakland, California. Musk and Sam Altman, OpenAI's CEO, needed to stop being messy bitches. While she didn't put it like that (she advised both men: "Control your propensity to use social media to make things worse outside this courtroom"), the underlying message was clear. The fact that the case even made it to court is indication enough of how strongly both men feel about one another. Social media name-calling is hardly necessary to make that plain. But the reason they're so eager to throw digital barbs at each other stems from a fundamental difference in belief about the future of AI. Musk doesn't trust Altman to oversee it. Many people might say the same about Musk. The anger and messiness between the two is simply the highest-profile example of how the debate over AI is pushing everyone closer to the brink. The wider cultural debate around artificial intelligence is increasingly polarized -- some might say unhinged -- and is spilling into dangerous territory.

Battle of paradigm shifters: Musk vs Altman over OpenAI's original purpose can shape AI's moral & commercial future - The Economic Times

Cambridge, UK: In a courtroom in Oakland, two of the most powerful men in tech have been fighting since Tuesday over a question that is not just legal but civilisational: who owns AI's future? Elon Musk's case against Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, OpenAI and Microsoft is about a breach of mission, corporate structure and an alleged betrayal of OpenAI's founding purpose. Musk says OpenAI was created as a non-profit to build AI for the benefit of humanity, not to become a profit-driven giant. OpenAI's defence is equally convincing: Musk wanted control, failed to get it, left, built a rival company in xAI, and is now using the courtroom to fight a commercial and personal battle. But to see this merely as Musk vs Altman is to miss the larger pattern. Every great technology seems to reach a moment when its founding myth is dragged to court. While legal filings may speak of contracts, fiduciary duties and damages, the emotional language is more primal: betrayal, legacy, control, copying and, above all, ego. This is not the first fight between two big egos. History is full of such dramas. They often begin as quarrels between large personalities, but end up shaping entire industries. Take Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. In the 1980s, Apple accused Microsoft of copying the look and feel of the Macintosh graphical interface. Beneath the claim was Jobs' fury that Microsoft, once an Apple partner, helped popularise a computing world that looked suspiciously like the one Apple believed it had created. Apple lost because Gates hinted that both stole from Xerox PARC. But the consequences were enormous. Windows became the dominant architecture of personal computing, and the case helped establish that broad interface ideas could not easily be monopolised by one company. What began as Jobs' anger at Gates became part of the story of how the PC age was organised. Or consider Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse. 'War of the Currents' was fought over Edison's DC v Westinghouse's AC. However, it was not merely a technical dispute, but a battle of systems, standards and industrial future. More significantly, it was a battle between Edison's inventor ego and Westinghouse's promise of scalability. AC won by lighting up Niagara Falls and Chicago World Fair, and helped determine the architecture of the modern electric grid. The Wright brothers' fight with Glenn Curtiss is another ego battle. Having achieved one of humanity's greatest breakthroughs in powered flight, Wilbur and Orville Wright fought to enforce their aircraft patents against rivals. They had a legitimate claim. But the founder's claim to moral ownership became the industry's choke point. That is why Musk v Altman matters beyond the Silicon Valley circus. It's not only about whether Musk is right, or whether Altman is right. It is about whether AI can be both a public good and a trillion-dollar business. OpenAI began with the aura of a public-good institution: safe, beneficial AI, counterweight to Big Tech concentration. But it quickly morphed into one of the most commercially consequential companies, deeply tied to Microsoft, with enormous computing infra and the economics of frontier AI. This is the central contradiction of AI today. While the narrative is humanitarian, the structure is starkly carnivo-capitalistic. The mission might talk about 'benefiting humanity', but the balance sheet is about cloud, chips, capital and market share. If Altman wins, the industry will probably read it as a validation of this contradictory 'mission plus money' model. The message will be that frontier AI is too expensive to be built like a university project, and to compete with Google, Meta, etc, companies need billions of dollars, hyperscale cloud partnerships and Wall Street. It strengthens the argument that a company can balance a public-interest mission, while also building a massive commercial enterprise, and accelerate the industrialisation of AI. We would see more hybrid structures, more public-benefit language, more non-profit wrappers around commercial engines, and more alliances between AI labs and Big Tech infrastructure providers. However, OpenAI may still lose part of the public narrative. Many people believed the word 'open' in OpenAI meant something real. A victory could, therefore, create a new cynicism around AI governance and safety. If Musk wins, OpenAI could implode, with Altman and Brockman under pressure to dial back, or move out. The earlier coup engineered by board members and ex-founders would look prescient. In the industry, founding documents and mission statements would no longer be seen as decorative wallpaper. The industry structure would change with Google and Anthropic emerging as clear winners, OpenAI and Microsoft as potential losers, and Musk's ego satisfied. It could force AI companies to adopt much clearer governance models, and boards might start questioning the structuring of AI labs. A judge and jury may finally settle the Musk-Altman trial. But the larger verdict will be delivered by history. History, as Mark Twain may or may not have said, does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. In every age, builders of the future first fight over who invented it, then who controls it and, finally, who gets to profit from it. The Oakland trial is AI's version of this ancient battle. The writer is founder-MD,The Tech Whisperer

Elon Musk vs Altman Turns Personal, Dan Ives Warns

But the bigger shift, according to Ives, isn't just the drama -- it's the direction. The fight, he suggests, is turning "personal." And that could slow everything down. From Mission Dispute To Personal Battle At the center of Musk's case are claims of breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment tied to OpenAI's transition to a for-profit structure. Musk has argued his early contributions -- time, capital, and resources -- were used in ways he never approved, framing the shift as a betrayal of OpenAI's founding mission. He is seeking $134 billion in damages, along with sweeping changes, including removing leadership and reverting the company's structure. OpenAI, for its part, has pushed back hard, calling the lawsuit a "harassment campaign" and arguing the dispute stems from Musk not getting "his way." That back-and-forth is now defining the tone of the trial. High Stakes, Longer Timeline Ives believes that tone shift matters. If the case continues to evolve into a more personal confrontation, it could take significantly longer to resolve -- stretching what might have been a contained legal battle into a prolonged courtroom fight. The trial's liability phase is expected to run through mid-May, with a second phase on remedies potentially following soon after. Even so, Ives' broader takeaway is measured. While the headlines suggest existential stakes, he expects the outcome to result in "scrapes and bruises" rather than any fundamental disruption to OpenAI or Altman's leadership. Big Drama, Limited Fallout? That leaves investors and observers with a paradox. The rhetoric is escalating. The numbers -- $134 billion in claimed damages -- are eye-popping. And the personalities involved are among the most influential in AI. But the likely impact, at least for now, may be far more contained. Because while the Musk Vs. Altman fight is clearly getting more personal, it may not ultimately change who's in control of the AI race. It might just take longer to find out. Photo: Photo Agency/Shutterstock Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.