OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took the stand yesterday in the third week of the blockbuster trial brought by Elon Musk, telling jurors that Musk wanted to “take a chainsaw through” the company’s research staff during his time on the board.
Altman said Musk pushed co-founders Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever to rank researchers by accomplishment so the bottom could be cut. The exercise did “huge damage for a long time to the culture of the organization,” Altman testified.
A Morale Boost When Musk Left
Altman said Musk’s 2018 departure from the OpenAI board was “a morale boost in some ways” because researchers thought, “we’re not going to have to work this way any more.”
He also detailed what he called a “particularly hair-raising moment” when co-founders asked Musk what would happen if he died while in control. Musk allegedly replied: “I hadn’t thought about it …
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