'I thought he was going to hit me,' OpenAI co-founder says of Musk

OpenAI president Greg Brockman testified that he feared Elon Musk would physically assault him during a 2017 meeting where Musk sought more control over the AI company [1]. Musk announced he would withhold funding after Brockman rejected his proposal [1]. The testimony, delivered in a federal court in Oakland, details a pivotal moment in the early relationship between the billionaire and the artificial intelligence firm he helped found [1]. Brockman described Musk's mood changing abruptly when his proposal for greater influence was refused [1]. "I actually thought he was going to hit me," Brockman told the jury [1]. The meeting concluded with Musk stating he would begin withholding financial support from OpenAI, which he had backed since 2015 [1]. Brockman's account is central to the legal battle where Musk is suing to undo OpenAI's transition to a for-profit business model [1]. Brockman testified that Musk was aware of plans to shift OpenAI toward a more traditional for-profit structure, a move the company said was necessary to raise billions in capital [1]. The trial has also revealed text messages from 2017 where Musk appeared to offer a Tesla Model 3 to co-founder Ilya Sutskever in an attempt to gain favorable terms [1]. Following Brockman, former OpenAI board member Shivon Zilis, who is the mother of four of Musk's children, is expected to testify [1]. Brockman stated that Zilis had informed him she had twins via in-vitro fertilization and described her relationship with Musk as "entirely platonic" [1]. He added that the board trusted Zilis to manage her conflict of interest with Musk, who left OpenAI and later launched a competing AI firm, xAI [1]. Zilis left the OpenAI board in March 2023 [1].