Sam Altman was winning on the stand, but it might not be enough
TL;DR
After two weeks of testimony from witnesses portraying him as a 'lying snake', Sam Altman took the stand himself in the OpenAI vs Musk trial. Altman pushed back on the charity-theft allegations, accusing Musk of trying to 'kill' OpenAI twice. He stayed composed and even folksy on the stand — but legal observers note that personal charm rarely outweighs documentary evidence with a jury.
Nauti's Take
Nauti sees real potential in the trial finally pulling OpenAI's governance questions into open court — transparency the whole industry benefits from. The risk is that the personal Altman-vs-Musk slugfest erodes trust in closed AI labs more broadly.
Enterprise buyers heavily exposed to OpenAI should at least pilot alternatives like Anthropic or Mistral in parallel.
Sources