OpenAI’s former head of technology Mira Murati slammed CEO Sam Altman as an untrustworthy leader who fomented strife among the company’s top ranks — stunning testimony that was shared Wednesday in Elon Musk’s bombshell lawsuit against the artificial intelligence giant.
Altman created an environment where OpenAI executives were pitted against each other, creating “chaos” in a way that “undermined” her ability to do her job, Murati alleged.
“My concern was about Sam saying one thing to one person and completely the opposite to another person,” she said in taped testimony played in Oakland, Calif., federal court.
When asked if she felt that Altman was not always candid with her, Murati replied, “Not always.”
“My issues with Sam were very much around management,” she added.
The testimony came in the second week of a trial that has gripped Silicon Valley and beyond. Musk’s suit accuses Altman and OpenAI’s President Greg Brockman of betraying the company’s founding contract by putting commercial gain over creating AI for public benefit. The ChatGPT maker has rejected the allegations, claiming Musk actually supported its transformation into a for-profit business.
The Tesla titan is seeking up to $180 billion in damages and a court order for OpenAI to unwind its for-profit status. Musk also wants Altman booted from the company’s board. In his own testimony last week, he said he’d been a “fool” to trust Altman with the future of the company.
After Altman was temporarily fired by the board of directors in November 2023, Murati briefly served as CEO. She has since left OpenAI and co-founded her own AI startup, Thinking Machines Lab.
Still, she said in her testimony that she previously supported an effort to bring Altman back as CEO, pressing board members for a fuller explanation for why they’d ousted him.
“I realized the board had not followed a process that could be trusted with regards to firing Sam,” Murati said. “As we can see in retrospect, the way [board members] handled it caused complete and utter chaos.”
Murati — who was seen in a glam dress at Monday’s Met Gala in Manhattan — detailed the chaos surrounding Altman’s ouster and how it threatened the company’s future.
“OpenAI was at catastrophic risk of falling apart,” she said. “I was concerned about the company completely blowing up.”
The exec added that she kept in close contact with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella during the tumultuous time. Text messages were displayed showing she texted him asking that he call her to coordinate “how to talk with sam here.”
Murati called Nadella a “voice of reason,” adding, “it was kind of a crazy situation.”
Microsoft said last month it was no longer paying part of its revenue to OpenAI, the latest in a series of steps to loosen a close partnership between the firms.
Murati said competing AI companies – specifically Google and Musk’s AI outfits – tried to swoop in to poach OpenAI staff amid the chaos of Altman’s firing and eventual rehiring.
“Very important we don’t lose researches to Demis or Elon,” Murati texted Nadella, referring to Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google’s DeepMind.
Former OpenAI board member Helen Toner took some shots at Murati in a video testimony that was also played Wednesday in court, describing her as two-faced about Altman’s firing.
“She was waiting to see which way the wind would blow,” Toner said, adding that Murati was “not willing to stick her neck out” and implied she was worried about “blowback for her career.”
The Post’s owner, News Corp, has a content-licensing deal with OpenAI.
