Former OpenAI Exec Calls Decision to Remove Sam Altman a ‘Hail Mary’ During Musk Trial

Microsoft’s CEO and another major player took the stand on Monday in Oakland, testifying in the blockbuster trial between OpenAI co-founders Elon Musk and Sam Altman.

Ahead of Altman’s testimony, Musk’s attorney Steven Molo questioned Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Ilya Sutskever, a top OpenAI computer scientist who departed the company in 2024. Sutskever discussed his role in orchestrating Altman’s brief ouster in 2023.

Over five days in November 2023, Altman was removed and reinstated from his post, after a coalition of board members raised concerns that he had not been “consistently candid in his communications” and cited a breakdown of trust.

Whether Altman and other executives have maintained OpenAI’s initial stated mission — to develop AI safely and for the “benefit of humanity” — is critical to Musk’s suit, which claims that leaders breached their duty to its nonprofit mission by building a for-profit company on top of it. Musk also alleged that the company unfairly benefited at his expense.

Musk also alleges that Microsoft, which is OpenAI’s largest financial backer and until this week held the exclusive rights to license and sell its technology, aided and abetted that breach of trust.

Molo questioned Nadella about Microsoft’s motive to invest in OpenAI — a $13 billion input that Nadella said is expected to see a return of about $92 billion, “if it works out.”

Musk’s attorney pointed out Nadella’s fiduciary duty to maximize profit, and referenced a series of texts between him and Altman that appeared to show Nadella pushing for an earlier rollout of the paid version of ChatGPT.

“When chatGPT paid?” Nadella wrote in the message.

Altman said that there was “Not enough compute to make it a good consumer experience,” to which Nadella said, “The sooner the better.”

Nadella said that the reason Microsoft invested was that OpenAI was pursuing a for-profit model, but he said, “If the pie became larger, the nonprofit would benefit as well.”

Molo asked Nadella if he was aware that, for a period of time, OpenAI’s nonprofit did not have any employees.

“I am not,” Nadella said.

Molo also questioned Nadella about Microsoft’s role during Altman’s brief ouster. At the time, Nadella announced that he would hire Altman, along with OpenAI’s third co-founder and current president, Greg Brockman, as well as other allies, to head up a new AI team at Microsoft.

Nadella said that he “had ideas about how Sam [Altman] and the other employees could join Microsoft if they were not reinstated.”

“If people were going to leave OpenAI, I wanted them to come to Microsoft,” he said.

Molo asked Nadella if he knew why Altman had been removed, to which Nadella said he was never given an “explicit answer.”

“Did the thought occur to you … the board might issue a public statement about why they fired Altman?” Molo said.

Nadella said during that period — referred to as “The Blip” by many OpenAI employees — he was focused on ensuring continuity for customers.

“It goes back to me wanting to communicate to customers that they can count on us,” he said. “Come Monday, that doesn’t just disappear.”

Sutskever, who took the stand after Nadella, described Altman’s removal differently. He said it was a “Hail Mary” to save OpenAI, which had become an environment that was “not conducive” to the technology’s safety.

“I felt a great deal of ownership of OpenAI,” he said. “I felt like I created this company. I simply cared for it, and I didn’t want it to be destroyed.”

Sutskever, who helped lead the ouster, had compiled a more than 50-page record of Altman’s “consistent pattern of lying,” including misrepresenting facts, safety protocols and company information to the board and executives.

Sutskever maintained that he had worked on a team that aimed to focus on long-term risks as more powerful AI was built.

“The goal of the super alignment is to do the research in advance, such that humanity will have the technological means to make it controlled and safe,” he said.

The team was disbanded days after he departed the company, in May 2024.