Ilya Sutskever Defends Role in Sam Altman's OpenAI Ouster in Court
Original: Ilya Sutskever Stands by His Role in Sam Altman’s OpenAI Ouster: ‘I Didn’t Want It to Be Destroyed’
Why This Matters
Reveals major ownership stakes and internal conflicts at leading AI company OpenAI
Former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever testified in Musk's trial against OpenAI, revealing he owns $7 billion in OpenAI shares and defending his role in Sam Altman's 2023 removal as CEO, stating he didn't want the company destroyed.
Sutskever testified in Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, revealing significant ownership stakes in OpenAI's $850 billion for-profit arm worth about $7 billion, making him one of the largest individual shareholders. He defended his role in collecting evidence against Sam Altman and drafting the memo that led to Altman's brief 2023 removal as CEO. 'I felt a great deal of ownership of OpenAI. I felt like I put my life into it, and I simply cared for it, and I didn't want it to be destroyed,' Sutskever said. He mentioned that his superalignment team, focused on AI safety, was doing OpenAI's most important long-term work before being disbanded in May 2024. Sutskever also supported OpenAI's defense that Musk never negotiated special promises when funding the nonprofit, stating OpenAI needed to become for-profit to secure necessary funding for large-scale computing.