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Testimony in Musk-OpenAI lawsuit... Sutskever: "Holds 10 trillion won worth of OpenAI shares"
MS internal document: "Targets 135 trillion won profit from OpenAI investment"
(San Francisco·Seoul=Yonhap News) Correspondent Kwon Young-jun·Reporter Jung Ju-ho = 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-scale investment in OpenAI, there was no contact from Musk at the time.
CEO Nadella appeared as a witness at the trial held on the 11th (local time) at the Oakland branch of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, following a lawsuit filed by CEO Musk, and stated that he had never been contacted by Musk regarding the OpenAI investment, according to foreign media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and economic broadcaster CNBC.
MS invested a total of $13 billion in three rounds from 2019 to 2023 and secured an exclusive license for the GPT model. However, CEO Nadella testified that during this process, Musk never contacted him to express related concerns.
When asked by a lawyer if he knew how to contact Musk, he replied, "We know each other's phone numbers."
Bloomberg reported that MS aimed for a profit of $92 billion (approximately 135 trillion won) from its OpenAI investment, citing an internal MS planning document from early 2023 that was disclosed in court that day.
CEO Nadella testified to the jury, "The investment went well because we took risks." As of October last year, the valuation of MS's OpenAI stake is approximately $135 billion (approximately 198 trillion won), far exceeding the original target.
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, and President Greg Brockman, claiming that he suffered damages as OpenAI pursued profit by violating its non-profit promise at the time of its establishment, and he also listed MS as a defendant, alleging that MS abetted and aided this.
He particularly stated in this trial that he had previously testified that upon hearing the news of 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 returned a few days later, "We are under them, we are above them, and we are around them," demonstrates 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 that the OpenAI board merely stated that 'Altman was consistently not candid in his communications' during the sudden dismissal, without providing any specific details about the incident, adding, "In my view, it was amateurish."
He further emphasized regarding the attempt to recruit Altman to MS immediately after the incident, "It was a measure to prevent talent from being taken by competitors such as Google."
Ilya Sutskever, former chief scientist of OpenAI, who led the Altman dismissal incident, 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 the reason, stating that CEO Altman "did not help the cause of developing safe artificial general intelligence (AGI)" by, for example, pitting executives against each other.
Sutskever disclosed in court today that the value of his OpenAI stake is approximately $7 billion (approximately 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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