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Musk testifies in OpenAI lawsuit... Sutskever: "Holds 10 trillion won worth of OpenAI shares"
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft (MS), said that contrary to Tesla CEO Elon Musk's statement that he was deeply concerned when MS made a large investment in OpenAI, he received no contact at the time.
According to foreign media such as the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and economic broadcaster CNBC, CEO Nadella testified on the 11th (local time) at a trial held in the Oakland division of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California due to CEO Musk's lawsuit, stating that he had not been contacted by Musk regarding the OpenAI investment.
MS invested a total of $13 billion in three tranches between 2019 and 2023 and also secured an exclusive license for the GPT model, but Nadella's testimony is that Musk never contacted him to express related concerns during this process.
When asked by a lawyer if he knew how to contact Musk, he replied, "We have each other's phone numbers."
CEO Nadella stated, "I am very proud that MS boldly invested in OpenAI, a nascent research lab that no one wanted to invest in," adding that MS's investment in OpenAI was not a donation and that the partnership between the two companies was commercial from the beginning.
CEO Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman, President Greg Brockman, and others, claiming he suffered damages as OpenAI pursued profit, breaking its non-profit promise at its founding, and also listed MS as a defendant, alleging that it abetted and aided this.
He particularly testified earlier in this trial that upon hearing about MS's investment in OpenAI, he realized that OpenAI had abandoned its non-profit mission.
Musk's side is arguing that CEO Nadella's statement in a media interview during the 2023 incident, when Altman was suddenly dismissed as CEO by the OpenAI board and reinstated days later, that "we are below them, above them, and around them," shows MS's influence over OpenAI.
However, CEO Nadella explained, "It was merely a statement related to a strategic partnership that granted us intellectual property rights."
He criticized the OpenAI board's explanation during the sudden dismissal, stating that they only said 'Altman was consistently not candid in his communications' without providing any specific incidents, adding, "In my view, it was amateurish."
He further emphasized that his attempt to recruit Altman to MS immediately after the incident "was a measure to prevent talent from being taken by competitors such as Google."
Ilya Sutskever, former OpenAI chief scientist who led Altman's dismissal, also took the stand today and revealed that he had been contemplating ways to dismiss Altman for a year before the board's decision.
He explained that CEO Altman "did not contribute to the cause of safe general artificial intelligence (AGI) development," for example, by causing conflicts among executives.
Sutskever disclosed in court today that the value of his OpenAI shares is approximately $7 billion (about 10 trillion won).
Through this lawsuit, Musk is demanding the dismissal of CEO Altman and President Brockman and the return of the profits they gained from the company to the non-profit board.
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