OpenAI CEO Sam Altman made an unexpected appearance in a California courtroom on Monday as jury selection began in his high-stakes legal battle with Elon Musk.
Altman was seen inside the Oakland courtroom wearing a dark suit and white shirt. Some potential jurors there shared unfavorable views about artificial intelligence and Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man.
Musk did not attend the first day of the federal civil trial between two of the tech industry’s most powerful billionaires. Since it is a civil trial, parties do not have to appear in court unless they testify. Until now, Mr. Musk and Mr. Altman have largely left the matter to their lawyers, other than occasional online attacks.
Two years ago, Tesla’s CEO sued OpenAI, Altman, and OpenAI President Greg Brockman, alleging that they intentionally “tricked” him into co-founding the company in 2015.
The lawsuit seeks more than $100 billion in damages, as well as fundamental changes to the structure of the $850 billion company behind ChatGPT. The incident comes as OpenAI is reportedly preparing for an initial public offering.
Earlier on Monday, Musk and OpenAI got into a heated argument on Musk’s X platform over the matter, with Musk calling Altman a “fraud Altman” and OpenAI slamming Musk’s lawsuit as a “baseless and jealous bid to derail a competitor.”
Musk is expected to testify at the trial, which will last several weeks, along with Altman and other technology executives, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Musk alleges in his lawsuit that he poured tens of millions of dollars into OpenAI to support its founding mission as a nonprofit dedicated to developing AI for the public good, but later abandoned some of that mission when it partnered with Microsoft.
Microsoft is also named as a defendant in Musk’s lawsuit.