Who trusts Sam Altman? | TechCrunch

In May 2023, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, was sworn in and testified before Congress about regulating AI. Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana heard his thoughts on advanced modeling licensing and asked if Altman was qualified to run a hypothetical AI regulatory agency.

“I love my current job,” Altman said He saidto the breast.

“You make a lot of money, don’t you?” Kennedy asked him.

“No, I get paid enough money for health insurance,” Altman assured him, “and I don’t have any shares in OpenAI.”

“You need a lawyer,” Kennedy replied.

Altman now has several lawyers, who watched as their client endured bitter cross-examination and was sworn in in federal court in California on Tuesday. They were investigating almost the same question as Kennedy: Is Altman qualified to control the most advanced AI models?

“You did not disclose to the US Senate that you had an interest in OpenAI through a stake in the Y Combinator fund, did you?” barked Steve Mollo, the combative lawyer leading Elon Musk’s effort to shut down OpenAI’s for-profit business.

Altman admitted that he had economic exposure to OpenAI through his LP position in the Y Combinator fund. “I didn’t mention it in that testimony, but again, I think it’s well understood what it means to be a passive owner of many mutual funds,” Altman said.

“Did you think Senator Kennedy was a very sophisticated investor when he asked you that question?” Molo answered.

Altman’s decision to volunteer because he was not an equal when he could have simply avoided the question was an interesting one. That’s technically true, but Altman — who emphasized his experience investing in early-stage startups — certainly understood his economic exposure to OpenAI through Y Combinator, and through investments in other AI companies that have worked with OpenAI.

Altman’s credibility was on trial Tuesday, at least in the eyes of prosecutors. OpenAI’s lawyers asserted that little had been done to advance Musk’s case, accusing their counterparts of character assassination. But the jury and Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers are weighing Altman’s credibility as a central figure in the events they are examining.

Mollo went through a series of people who accused Altman of lying or misleading them — including accusations made under oath in the courtroom by former OpenAI board members Helen Toner, Tasha McCauley, Elon Musk, and OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever. As proposed recently New Yorker story Details concerns about his honesty.

The “image” — when the OpenAI board briefly fired Altman and removed OpenAI Chairman Greg Brockman as chairman for failing to be honest with them — has been the subject of much debate in this trial. Then-board members Toner and McCauley testified that Altman had misled them, with McCauley citing a “toxic culture of lying.”

“I have doubts that this is the whole reason” for his dismissal, Altman said. When asked again to acknowledge that the board said he had not been honest with them, Altman responded: “They asked me to come back the next morning.”

The focus on his dismissal is not just about questioning Altman’s credibility. One of the key questions in the trial is whether OpenAI’s structure lives up to its mission, specifically whether the nonprofit’s board can exercise real control over the for-profit organization. From the perspective of Musk’s lawyers, the 2023 episode provides evidence that Altman’s influence over the company exceeded that of its board of directors.

Witnesses brought by OpenAI and Microsoft insisted that the nonprofit’s current board exercises control over the for-profit organization. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella called Altman’s firing “amateur city.”

Brett Taylor, who joined OpenAI’s board as chairman in the wake of Altman’s reappointment, said he found nothing to justify his termination and that Altman was “straight with me.” No one has interfered with this work since it began in 2024, said Dr. Zico Coulter, an OpenAI board member who focuses on AI safety.

But Taylor also explained that the choice to rehire Altman in 2023 was because his departure would have effectively ended OpenAI as a going concern, with most employees intending to follow him outside. Now, as the jury and judge consider whether the current structure lives up to the organization’s mission, they will question whether the board can really fire or discipline its CEO.

Asked if he would remove himself as CEO, Altman said he had no plans to do so. When asked if he could be trusted, he replied: “I think I am an honest and trustworthy businessman.”