Over three weeks of testimony, Elon Musk’s legal team has tried hammering home one fundamental point to the jury: You cannot trust Sam Altman. On Tuesday, Musk attorney Steven Molo asked Altman directly if he is “completely trustworthy,” to which the OpenAI CEO responded, “I believe so.” During Thursday’s closing arguments, Molo said that five witnesses who worked with Altman called him a “liar,” according to the Associated Press, and that his “credibility is directly at issue in this case.” He added, “The defendants absolutely need you to believe Sam Altman. If you cannot trust him, if you don’t believe him, they cannot win.”
Trials are all about challenging the accounts of witnesses and sowing doubt in the minds of jurors about the other side’s version of events. But Molo went beyond bluntly questioning Altman’s character on Thursday and veered into vivid, metaphorical territory. “Imagine that you’re on a hike, and you come upon one of those wooden bridges that you see on a trail, and it’s over a gorge,” Molo said, per the New York Times. “There’s a river that’s 100 feet below and it looks a little scary, but a woman standing by the entry to the bridge says, ‘Don’t worry, the bridge is built on Sam Altman’s version of the truth.’ Would you walk across that bridge? I don’t think many people would.”
