Elon Musk’s worst enemy in court is Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s worst enemy in court is Elon Musk
埃隆·马斯克在法庭上最大的敌人是他自己
It’s dangerous to tell a courtroom “I don’t lose my temper.” 在法庭上说“我不会发脾气”是很危险的。
About five hours into Elon Musk’s testimony, I typed the following sentence into my notes: “I have never been more sympathetic to Sam Altman in my life.” 在埃隆·马斯克作证大约五个小时后，我在笔记中写下了这样一句话：“我这辈子从来没有像现在这样同情山姆·奥特曼。”
Musk’s direct testimony was an improvement over yesterday — even if his lawyer kept asking leading questions to cue him in how to answer. But that memory was immediately obliterated by an absolutely miserable cross-examination. For hours, Musk refused to answer yes or no questions with yes or no, occasionally “forgot” things he’d testified to in the morning, and scolded defense lawyer William Savitt. I watched a few jury members glance at each other. During one testy exchange, one woman was rubbing her head. Me too, babe. 马斯克的直接证词比昨天有所改善——尽管他的律师不断通过诱导性提问来提示他如何回答。但这一印象很快就被一场极其糟糕的交叉盘问彻底粉碎了。在长达数小时的时间里，马斯克拒绝用“是”或“否”来回答是非题，偶尔还会“忘记”他当天上午作证的内容，并训斥辩方律师威廉·萨维特（William Savitt）。我看到几位陪审员面面相觑。在一次激烈的交锋中，一位女士一直在揉着头。我也是，亲爱的。
Even the judge, who at times prompted Musk to answer “yes” or “no,” was having a bad time. “He was at times difficult,” said Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers after Musk after the jury left the room. (At one point, when she’d cut off his argumentative answer, she got the biggest laugh of the day.) “Part of management from my perspective is just to get through testimony.” 就连有时会提醒马斯克回答“是”或“否”的法官也感到很头疼。在马斯克和陪审团离开法庭后，伊冯·冈萨雷斯·罗杰斯（Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers）法官说：“他有时很难沟通。”（有一次，当她打断马斯克的争辩时，引发了当天全场最大的笑声。）“从我的角度来看，庭审管理的一部分工作就是确保证词能够顺利进行。”
“I don’t yell at people,” Musk said “我不会对人吼叫，”马斯克说
Musk spent a lot of yesterday painting this heroic picture of himself, and this morning, near the end of his direct examination, said, “I don’t lose my temper,” and “I don’t yell at people.” He said he might have called someone a “jackass,” but only in the spirit of saying something like, “don’t be a jackass.” 马斯克昨天花了很多时间把自己塑造成一个英雄形象，而今天上午，在直接询问快结束时，他说：“我不会发脾气”，“我也不会对人吼叫”。他说他可能称呼过某人为“蠢货”（jackass），但那只是为了表达类似“别犯蠢”的意思。
Immediately afterward, Savitt baited him into being petty, irritating, and generally hard to deal with. At one point, we all watched Musk lose his temper. He spent hours quibbling over simple questions. Again and again, Savitt referred back to Musk’s deposition, where he’d answered questions slightly differently, calling Musk’s accounts into question. Even if the average juror didn’t think he was lying, he was certainly inconsistent. 紧接着，萨维特诱导他表现得小气、烦人且难以相处。有那么一刻，我们都目睹了马斯克发火。他花了几个小时在简单的问题上吹毛求疵。萨维特反复引用马斯克的庭外证词，指出他在那里回答问题的方式略有不同，从而质疑马斯克的陈述。即使普通陪审员不认为他在撒谎，他的言行也确实前后不一。
Savitt’s cross-examination left the distinct impression that Musk quit his quarterly payments to OpenAI because he wasn’t going to get full control of the company, then tried to kneecap it and fold it into Tesla. Initially, Musk wanted four board seats and 51 percent of the shares. The other co-founders would get three seats, together, to be voted on by shareholders (including other employees). Though Musk said that the eventual plan was to expand to 12 seats, it was obvious that Musk had full control on the initial board of seven. 萨维特的交叉盘问给人留下了深刻的印象：马斯克停止向OpenAI支付季度款项，是因为他无法获得对公司的完全控制权，随后他试图削弱OpenAI并将其并入特斯拉。最初，马斯克想要四个董事会席位和51%的股份。其他联合创始人将共同获得三个席位，由股东（包括其他员工）投票选出。尽管马斯克表示最终计划是扩大到12个席位，但很明显，在最初的七人董事会中，马斯克拥有完全的控制权。
When Musk didn’t get what he wanted, he pulled the plug on his funding commitment and hired Andrej Karpathy, OpenAI’s second-best engineer, to Tesla in 2017. Despite his fiduciary duty to OpenAI as a board member, he did not try to get Karpathy to stay at OpenAI when he said he heard Karpathy wanted to leave. (“I think people should have a right to work where they want to work,” Musk said on the stand.) 当马斯克没有得到他想要的，他便切断了资金承诺，并在2017年将OpenAI第二优秀的工程师安德烈·卡帕西（Andrej Karpathy）挖到了特斯拉。尽管作为董事会成员对OpenAI负有信托责任，但当他听说卡帕西想离开时，他并没有试图挽留他。（马斯克在证人席上说：“我认为人们有权在他们想工作的地方工作。”）
“In my and Andrej’s opinion, Tesla is the only path that could even hope to hold a candle to Google.” “我和安德烈的观点是，特斯拉是唯一有望与谷歌抗衡的途径。”
By 2018, Musk was saying that OpenAI had no path forward with its current structure, declaring it was on “a path of certain failure” in emails to Ilya Sutskever and Greg Brockman. His proposed solution was to merge Tesla and OpenAI. “In my and Andrej’s opinion, Tesla is the only path that could even hope to hold a candle to Google,” Musk said. The plan never came to fruition, and Musk resigned from OpenAI’s board that year. 到2018年，马斯克声称OpenAI目前的结构已无路可走，并在给伊利亚·苏茨克维（Ilya Sutskever）和格雷格·布罗克曼（Greg Brockman）的邮件中宣称它正处于“注定失败的道路上”。他提出的解决方案是将特斯拉和OpenAI合并。“我和安德烈的观点是，特斯拉是唯一有望与谷歌抗衡的途径，”马斯克说。该计划最终未能实现，马斯克于同年辞去了OpenAI董事会的职务。
As early as 2016, Musk had own concerns about OpenAI as a non-profit. In an email to a colleague at Neuralink, he wrote “Deepmind is moving very fast. I am concerned that OpenAI is not on a path to catch up. Setting it up as non-profit might, in hindsight, have been the wrong move. Sense of urgency is not as high.” 早在2016年，马斯克就对OpenAI作为非营利组织表示过担忧。在给Neuralink一位同事的邮件中，他写道：“Deepmind发展非常迅速。我担心OpenAI没有赶上的路径。事后看来，将其设为非营利组织可能是一个错误的举动。紧迫感不够高。”
Asked about this, Musk said he was just speculating. Savitt said, “Those are your words, yes or no?” 当被问及此事时，马斯克说他只是在推测。萨维特问：“这是你的原话，是还是不是？”
“You mostly do unfair questions.” “你提出的问题大多不公平。”
Musk replied, “This is a hypothetical.” 马斯克回答说：“这是一个假设。”
Savitt said, “So you thought it might have been a wrong move? That’s what you said?” 萨维特说：“所以你认为这可能是一个错误的举动？你是这么说的吗？”
Finally, Musk said yes. 最终，马斯克回答说是。
Getting Musk to put any of that on the record was intensely difficult. He refused repeatedly to answer questions like whether he knew cutting off OpenAI donations would create financial pressure, or whether he’d asked Karpathy to stay at OpenAI. He accused Savitt of asking questions that were “designed to trick me,” and we got multiple versions of this: 要让马斯克在记录中承认任何一点都极其困难。他多次拒绝回答诸如“他是否知道切断对OpenAI的捐款会造成财务压力”或“他是否曾要求卡帕西留在OpenAI”之类的问题。他指责萨维特提出的问题是“为了诱骗我”，我们多次听到类似这样的对话：
Musk: You mostly do unfair questions 马斯克：你提出的问题大多不公平。
Savitt: I am trying to put the questions as fairly as I can. I am doing my best. 萨维特：我正在尽我所能公平地提出问题。我已经在尽力了。
Musk: That’s not true. 马斯克：那不是真的。
Musk was trying to make this as painful as possible for Savitt, but he also made it as painful as possible for everyone else, including the jury. Watching him simply refuse to answer questions during cross he’d easily answered during direct was annoying. Watching him refuse to admit he understood the nature of linear time — and therefore the fact that he was still a director of OpenAI’s board before he resigned in 2018 — was infuriating. It made him look dishonest. 马斯克试图让萨维特尽可能难受，但他同时也让包括陪审团在内的所有人都感到痛苦。看着他在交叉盘问中拒绝回答那些他在直接询问中轻松回答过的问题，令人恼火。看着他拒绝承认自己理解线性时间的概念——从而拒绝承认他在2018年辞职前仍是OpenAI董事会成员这一事实——更是令人愤怒。这让他看起来很不诚实。
“I’d lost trust in Altman and I was concerned they were really trying to steal the charity.” “我已经对奥特曼失去了信任，我担心他们真的在试图窃取这家慈善机构。”
Musk’s basic, oft-repeated story during this week’s testimony has been that OpenAI is “stealing a charity” and “looting a non-profit.” He maintains that he was all right with some limi 马斯克在本周作证期间反复讲述的基本故事是，OpenAI正在“窃取一家慈善机构”并“掠夺一个非营利组织”。他坚持认为，他对于某些限制是可以接受的……