At Musk v. Altman, the software giant is trying to stay above the fray and out of ‘amateur city.’
Maybe I’m just punch-drunk in my third week attending Musk v. Altman, but I have become very, very fond of Microsoft during the course of this trial. They don’t want to be here any more than I do.
Their opening statement was honestly one of the most Microsoft things I’ve ever seen. More than anything else, it was an ad for Microsoft that listed their products in some detail. The general implication, from that statement, was that this trial was absurd, their involvement was absurd, but you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, might still enjoy an Xbox game.
There’s been a great deal of high drama on the stand, from Musk, his associates, and OpenAI. Microsoft was an early and major funder of OpenAI’s for-profit company, it’s true. We saw internal emails about whether funding OpenAI was a good idea and how to avoid becoming IBM to OpenAI’s Microsoft. (In the context of this trial? Normal!)
But Microsoft is notably missing as primary decision-makers in the extensive text message threads, diary entries, and the other embarrassing ephemera. They appeared in a few emails, and there were a few texts from CEO Satya Nadella suggesting OpenAI board members or asking Sam Altman or Mira Murati to call him, but that was about it.
