Musk faces harsh grilling under oath in courtroom showdown with Sam Altman
Lawyers for Musk, the world’s richest person, sought to paint him as a tech pioneer who wanted to aid humanity. A judge cut off his long-winded answersAfter a dramatic first day of opening statements and testimony from Elon Musk in his case against Sam Altman and OpenAI, the trial continued on Wednesday with a cross examination of the Tesla CEO. Musk began his second day of testimony by repeating the accusation that Altman “stole a charity” and would endanger humanity with AI multiple times. Peripheral to the legal showdown, the court was packed on Wednesday with a mix of media and eager young men who lined up before dawn to get a glimpse – and a picture – of Musk. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers at one point threatened that if observers did not stop taking photos and videos, a violation of the court’s rules, she would shut down an overflow room for watching the proceedings.
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Reporting on the story is continuing to develop as our newsroom monitors the wire for fresh detail. At this stage the picture is still being assembled from initial dispatches, and editors are working to corroborate the early account against secondary sources before adding further claims to the record. The pace of incoming information has been steady but uneven, with some threads firming up quickly while others remain partial. Readers should treat the present account as a working summary rather than a closed file, and revisit the page through the day for material additions. Where new statements, documents or on-the-record interviews become available, they will be folded into the body of the article rather than published as separate updates, so the narrative remains coherent end to end.
Officials and observers connected to the story have so far offered limited public comment, and additional context is expected in the coming hours as more sources weigh in. Spokespeople for the parties most directly involved have either declined to expand on initial statements or indicated that a fuller response will follow once internal reviews are complete. Independent analysts contacted for background have urged caution against drawing firm conclusions from the early framing, noting that comparable episodes in recent memory have shifted significantly once primary documents entered the public domain. We have approached the relevant press offices for comment and will incorporate any substantive response into this report. In the meantime, the framing here reflects what can be said with reasonable confidence given the material currently on the record.