OAKLAND, Calif.—Attorneys representing OpenAI on Wednesday pushed back against allegations in federal court that the company’s CEO Sam Altman defrauded Tesla CEO Elon Musk and betrayed a founding mission to operate as an open-source, nonprofit lab dedicated to advancing artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity.
Musk continued testifying on the second day of the high-profile civil trial, asking a jury to find Altman and others liable for claims they took tens of millions in charitable donations from Musk—then converted OpenAI to a for-profit venture in order to enrich themselves.
William Savitt, an attorney for OpenAI, sought to impeach Musk’s central claim that he had conceived of the lab as a nonprofit counterweight to existential dangers posed by profit-driven AI advancement….