REGISTER NOW Musk insisted that there was a big difference between investors whose profits are capped and those whose profits are unlimited. The earliest major investments by Microsoft in OpenAI limited the software giant’s profits, but those restrictions have been rolled back over the years. Musk says those changes ultimately led him to bring this lawsuit. Savitt tried to establish that Musk had been consulted by Altman and Shivon Zilis — his longtime adviser who is also the mother of four of his children — about subsequent efforts to raise money, and did not object. Zilis was also a member of the OpenAI board when it approved some of those transactions. That cross-examination extended to Tesla’s AI ambitions. Notably, Musk was asked about Tesla’s efforts to develop competing AI technologies and found himself, not for the first time, on the wrong side of one of his own posts on X. After Musk said that Tesla’s AI work was focused only on self-driving and not AGI (a term for AI systems that can perform any intellectual task that a human can), he was asked about a recent post claiming that “Tesla will be one of the companies to make AGI.” “We are not pursuing AGI right now,” Musk told the court. (Tesla shareholders may want to take note.) Musk was also asked about a post where he claimed to have invested $100 million in OpenAI, rather than the $38 million that actually changed hands. He argued that his reputation and network made up for the disparity. Savitt brought up emails where Musk had backed efforts by Tesla and his brain interface company, Neuralink, to poach employees from OpenAI while he was still on that company’s board. Another conversation focused on his efforts to hire OpenAI leaders when he left the board in 2018, including Andrej Karpathy, who departed OpenAI to lead self-driving work at Tesla. Musk was also asked about a conversation where Zilis suggested Musk recruit Sutskever to Tesla. The most consequential thread of the day, though, may have been about harm prevention. Part of Musk’s case rests on the idea that OpenAI’s transition into a traditional corporation is dangerous to society because it reduces the company’s focus on safety. Savitt, in turn, had Musk admit that all AI companies, including his own, suffer from this risk. Judge Gonzalez Rogers halted that line of questioning, but in remarks to the lawyers after testimony concluded made clear it would resume, with limits. When Musk’s lawyers floated questions about ChatGPT’s role in the Tumbler Ridge shooting — an incident earlier this year in Canada in which a person went on a killing spree after extensive conversations with the chatbot — she made clear that she didn’t want to hear about scandals caused by AI models, but that xAI and OpenAI’s approaches to safety were fair game. Musk returns Thursday for another round of adversarial questioning. Also expected to testify are his family office manager, Jared Birchall; AI safety expert Stuart Russell; and OpenAI president Greg Brockman. Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated details of the Tumbler Ridge shooting due to an editing error. It has been updated. Topics