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Lawyers for Elon Musk and OpenAI made their closing arguments this week, and now it\u2019s up to jurors to decide whether OpenAI did anything wrong as it\u2019s transformed into a slightly-more-for-profit<\/a> organization.\u00a0<\/p>\n But as Kirsten Korosec, Sean O\u2019Kane, and I noted on the latest episode of TechCrunch\u2019s Equity podcast<\/a>, a big theme in the trial\u2019s final days was whether OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is trustworthy<\/a> \u2014 for example, Musk\u2019s attorney Steve Molo grilled Altman about whether statements he\u2019d made during congressional testimony were truthful.<\/p>\n Kirsten noted that Musk has made plenty of misleading statements of his own<\/a>, and that trust isn\u2019t just an issue for Altman.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a fundamental question [for] a lot of tech journalists, policymakers, and more and more consumers, about all the AI labs,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s really come down to trust, because we don\u2019t have the insight, necessarily \u2014 these are all privately held companies, there\u2019s a lot behind the veil still.\u201d<\/p>\n Keep reading for a preview of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n Anthony Ha:<\/strong> [The end of the trial] led to this really provocative headline from one of our writers, Tim Fernholz, [that] just says, \u201cWho trusts Sam Altman?\u201d<\/a> Does anyone want to take a stab at answering this?\u00a0<\/p>\n Kirsten Korosec:<\/strong> Yeah, Anthony, I\u2019m going to throw it right back to you. Do you trust Sam Altman?\u00a0<\/p>\n Anthony:<\/strong> It’s an interesting question because it feels like something that’s kind of a wild question to discuss in a journalistic context, but actually that’s the core of the trial, in a lot of ways.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sean O\u2019Kane:<\/strong> That\u2019s not a yes.<\/p>\n Anthony:<\/strong> And it actually seems to be [at the] core of understanding so much of what’s happened at OpenAI, especially this big executive power struggle that they now call The Blip.<\/p>\n It just seems like a lot of people who’ve worked with Altman don’t trust him<\/a>. And he’s acknowledged this a little bit, because he’ll talk about the fact that he recognizes he’s been conflict averse<\/a>, telling people what they want to hear, and he’s trying to work on that.<\/p>\n I mean, it sounds plausible, and I can understand how that can lead to misunderstandings in some situations. [But] I’m also a very conflict-averse person and I’d like to think that if any of this stuff went to trial, that people would not be asking, \u201cIs Anthony Ha trustworthy?\u201d<\/p>\n Sean:<\/strong> Still not a yes!\u00a0<\/p>\n Kirsten:<\/strong> I think that people would say that you are trustworthy. I will say that question, while provocative, doesn’t just encapsulate what this trial was about. I would zoom out even more and say this is a fundamental question [for] a lot of tech journalists, policymakers, and more and more consumers, about all the AI labs. It’s really come down to trust, because we don’t have the insight, necessarily \u2014 these are all privately held companies, there’s a lot behind the veil still.<\/p>\n Maybe when they all IPO, we can get a peek, but it is fundamentally about trust and misuse, and do we believe the intent? And what I would throw back is, sometimes the intent can be worthy, noble, and still misused. It can still end up as a bit of a shit show. I think it’s more than who trusts Sam Altman \u2014 although that was very interesting in this trial \u2014 but more of that bigger question that we can apply to the entire industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sean:<\/strong> I’ll say it: I don’t trust him. But you know, I don’t trust most people, so I guess that’s just the baseline.\u00a0<\/p>\n We\u2019ll see where this goes. The trial wraps up today. I’ve been very curious to hear how the jury decides this all. I think at the start of this, a big motivator of this was Elon Musk trying to sling mud, at a perceived rival and someone who he feels slighted him. And I don’t know if we know enough yet to say that that was completely accomplished, and whether or not he has a shot at winning. But I think all these people came out of this looking a little bit worse.\u00a0<\/p>\n Anthony:<\/strong> And just to get specific, why this is coming up this week is that [Altman] was on the stand and he was basically getting grilled about some statements he’s made in the past, in testimony to [Congress], basically saying he didn’t have any equity in OpenAI. And that is not true because he had a stake through Y Combinator, which he used to run. And tried to brush that off by saying, \u201cI assume that everybody understands what it means to be a passive investor in a VC fund.\u201d And I think [Elon Musk\u2019s] lawyer, somewhat fairly, said \u201cReally? You think the congressman who was interviewing you knew that?\u201d<\/p>\n Kirsten:<\/strong> Yeah, I mean, he was playing the whole semantics game. What I thought was so interesting about [this] is the style of how Sam Altman answered questions [compared to] Elon Musk on the stand.\u00a0<\/p>\n So Elon Musk, in many, many, many scenarios and many instances, we can point to the fact that he put something out on Twitter that was a lie or a bit of a fib, and on the stand corrected the record. So there’s a history of, I would say, non-truthfulness-slash-lying, blatant or otherwise, in Elon Musk’s world, but how he treated it was incredibly combative and very different than Altman who really took this [attitude of], \u201cI’m working on it,\u201d and tried to seem sort of affable and I don’t know if it\u2019ll work for him.<\/p>\n Because it really comes down to the core facts, and hopefully that’s what the jury pays attention to. But I thought that that was really interesting \u2014 both being untruthful, but how they dealt with it was very different.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\n