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Sutskever, Nadella Testify at OpenAI Trial

Is OpenAI's for-profit shift an inevitable business necessity or a betrayal of Elon Musk?

Published MAY 12

Sutskever, Nadella Testify at OpenAI Trial

Story

Above: Ilya Sutskever exits federal court in Oakland, Calif., on May 11. Image credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The Facts

Ilya Sutskever, former OpenAI chief scientist and co-founder, testified Monday that he spent about a year compiling a roughly 52-page document for OpenAI's board alleging that CEO Sam Altman had displayed a "consistent pattern of lying" and was "undermining and pitting executives against one another."
yourNEWS.com
Reuters
Sutskever said he discussed removing Altman with then-Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati and described Altman's conduct as "not conducive to any grand goal," including the safe development of artificial general intelligence. He later expressed regret over his role in the board's decision and voted to reinstate Altman.
Wired
The Globe and Mail
Sutskever disclosed that his ownership stake in OpenAI is currently worth about $7 billion, up from roughly $5 billion in November 2025. He also confirmed that after Altman's ouster, OpenAI board members held talks with rival AI company Anthropic about a potential merger, though he said he was not enthusiastic about the idea.
Forbes
Reuters
Sutskever testified that Google offered him $6 million a year to remain at the company rather than leave to co-found OpenAI, which he described as a "staggering amount of money" at the time. He left OpenAI in 2024 and has since founded AI startup Safe Superintelligence.
Wired
Forbes
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella testified earlier Monday that he was "pretty surprised" by the board's decision to fire Altman and described the handling of the situation as "amateur city." He said his priority was maintaining continuity for Microsoft customers during the November 2023 crisis.
Wired
The Indian Express
Nadella testified that Microsoft's more than $13 billion investments in OpenAI from 2019-2023 were not donations and had a clear commercial element from the outset, including discounted cloud computing in exchange for marketing benefits and a share of profits.
NBC
The Indian Express

Sources Split

LEFT

CENTER

RIGHT

ESTAB
CRIT

CENTER

PRO
ESTAB

The Spin

Narrative A

Ilya Sutskever — the very man who tried to fire Sam Altman over mission concerns — testified under oath that a for-profit structure is absolutely necessary because frontier AI requires capital that no nonprofit can raise. Brockman's diary also showed Musk wanted total control and had OpenAI staff doing unpaid Tesla work. The evidence shows OpenAI's restructuring was driven by careful, deliberate calculations.

Aakash Gupta on X

AI Central

Narrative B

Greg Brockman's own diary entries exposed what Musk's legal team has argued all along — that OpenAI's leadership planned to cut Musk out and go for-profit while stringing him along. Brockman wrote that Musk's story would "correctly be that we weren't honest with him," which is a stunning admission. A candid self-indictment like that should give the jury serious doubts about OpenAI's integrity.

Mario Nawfal on X