Elon Musk said Sam Altman “stole” a non-profit — but the trial showed he had similar aims
Elon Musk said Sam Altman “stole” a non-profit — but the trial showed he had similar aims
埃隆·马斯克称萨姆·奥特曼“窃取”了一家非营利组织——但庭审显示他有着类似的目标
The jury’s speedy decision to reject Elon Musk’s lawsuit against the other founders of OpenAI and Microsoft confirmed what we saw in the courtroom: Musk’s case was a weak one, in part because he waited so long to file it. Watching the closing arguments last week, OpenAI’s attorneys detailed point-by-point how the law was on their client’s side, while the plaintiffs team focused on Sam Altman’s apparent lack of credibility and expressed disbelief that anyone would disagree with Musk’s accusations. 陪审团迅速驳回埃隆·马斯克对 OpenAI 其他创始人和微软提起的诉讼，这证实了我们在法庭上所见的情况：马斯克的案子证据薄弱，部分原因是他拖了太久才提起诉讼。在上周的结案陈词中，OpenAI 的律师逐点详细说明了法律如何站在他们客户这一边，而原告团队则专注于萨姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）明显的信誉缺失，并对有人会不同意马斯克的指控表示难以置信。
The final effect was that, after the verdict, some found it hard to believe Musk had lost — including the man himself. In a post he later deleted, Musk called Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers a “terrible activist Oakland judge,” then announced his plans to appeal, declaring “there is no question to anyone following the case in detail that Altman & Brockman did in fact enrich themselves by stealing a charity.” But Altman and Brockman weren’t the only figures who benefitted from OpenAI’s non-profit investments. 最终的结果是，在判决下达后，一些人难以相信马斯克竟然败诉了——包括马斯克本人。在后来删除的一篇帖子中，马斯克称伊冯·冈萨雷斯·罗杰斯（Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers）法官是一位“糟糕的奥克兰激进派法官”，随后宣布了他的上诉计划，声称“对于任何详细关注此案的人来说，毫无疑问，奥特曼和布罗克曼（Brockman）确实通过窃取一家慈善机构中饱私囊”。但奥特曼和布罗克曼并非唯一从 OpenAI 的非营利性投资中获益的人。
As much as Musk and his legal team tried to make the trial about Altman, the proceedings revealed just as much about Musk himself. One incident that came out in court showed Musk benefiting from OpenAI in an uncomfortably familiar way. Greg Brockman testified that in 2017, Musk asked him to bring a team of OpenAI researchers down to Tesla’s headquarters to help with the autopilot team for a few weeks. “It was pretty clear that was not something we could say no to,” Brockman said. 尽管马斯克及其法律团队试图将庭审焦点集中在奥特曼身上，但诉讼过程同样揭示了马斯克本人。法庭上披露的一起事件显示，马斯克以一种令人不安的熟悉方式从 OpenAI 受益。格雷格·布罗克曼（Greg Brockman）作证称，2017 年，马斯克要求他带一支 OpenAI 研究团队前往特斯拉总部，协助自动驾驶团队工作几周。“很明显，我们无法拒绝，”布罗克曼说。
Brockman described taking a team of leading scientists, including Andrej Karpathy, Ilya Sutskever, and Scott Grey, to consult with the “demoralized” Tesla workers. They helped come up with ideas to improve the vehicle’s self-driving technology, with Sutskever telling the team that if they could find 10,000 images of a tricky corner case, they would be able to fix their software. Musk even asked Brockman to recommend employees to fire, which he declined to do. Another person familiar with the episode confirmed Brockman’s account, and said Tesla did not reimburse OpenAI for the time and effort of its employees. Musk’s family office, Excession, didn’t reply to a request for comment. 布罗克曼描述了带领包括安德烈·卡帕西（Andrej Karpathy）、伊利亚·苏茨克维（Ilya Sutskever）和斯科特·格雷（Scott Grey）在内的一流科学家团队，为“士气低落”的特斯拉员工提供咨询的过程。他们帮助提出了改进车辆自动驾驶技术的想法，苏茨克维告诉团队，如果能找到 10,000 张棘手的边缘案例图像，他们就能修复软件。马斯克甚至要求布罗克曼推荐解雇员工，但被布罗克曼拒绝了。另一位知情人士证实了布罗克曼的说法，并表示特斯拉并未就其员工的时间和精力向 OpenAI 进行补偿。马斯克的家族办公室 Excession 未回复置评请求。
The heart of Musk’s case is that Altman, Brockman and OpenAI committed a “breach of charitable trust” — that Musk donated funds for a specific charitable purpose, and his cofounders instead used them for something else. He also accuses them of “unjust enrichment” due stock and other benefits from OpenAI’s for-profit. In the case of the OpenAI scientists parachuting into Tesla, Musk’s charitable donations were intended to hire scientists focused on securing the benefits of AGI. Instead, he had them work for free at his for-profit company. 马斯克案的核心在于奥特曼、布罗克曼和 OpenAI 犯下了“违反慈善信托”的行为——即马斯克捐赠资金是为了特定的慈善目的，而他的联合创始人却将其用于其他用途。他还指控他们因 OpenAI 营利性部门的股票和其他利益而“不当得利”。在 OpenAI 科学家空降特斯拉的案例中，马斯克的慈善捐款本意是聘请专注于确保通用人工智能（AGI）利益的科学家。然而，他却让他们在自己的营利性公司免费工作。
Dorothy Lund, a Columbia Law School professor and the co-host of the Beyond Unprecedented podcast, told TechCrunch that this arrangement wouldn’t be legal, calling it “a bit rich for Musk to be suing for breach of a charitable trust, when he appears to have been redirecting assets in a way that was inconsistent with that mission.” It’s true that the self-driving work involved artificial intelligence, but witnesses for Musk emphasized that Tesla’s self-driving project was very different from OpenAI’s research agenda. That’s in part because Karpathy left OpenAI for Tesla shortly after this incident. OpenAI’s attorneys portrayed the departure as Musk violating his duty to the lab, where he was co-chair of the board, by recruiting one of its key researchers to his own company. 哥伦比亚大学法学院教授、《Beyond Unprecedented》播客联合主持人多萝西·伦德（Dorothy Lund）告诉 TechCrunch，这种安排是不合法的。她称：“马斯克在自己似乎以与使命不符的方式转移资产的情况下，却起诉他人违反慈善信托，这实在有些讽刺。”诚然，自动驾驶工作涉及人工智能，但马斯克的证人强调，特斯拉的自动驾驶项目与 OpenAI 的研究议程截然不同。部分原因是卡帕西在事件发生后不久就离开了 OpenAI 加入了特斯拉。OpenAI 的律师将这次离职描述为马斯克违反了对实验室的职责——当时他是董事会联席主席——通过将实验室的一名关键研究人员招募到自己的公司。
The other fact that no doubt influenced the jury was the amount of time Musk spent trying to gain sole control of a potential OpenAI for-profit affiliate in 2017. Musk deployed good cop, bad cop tactics in an attempt to convince his cofounders to let him have total control of OpenAI’s for-profit affiliate — giving them free Teslas, and threatening to withhold his donations. His efforts put his attorneys in a tricky spot, facing a need to convince the jury there was a significant difference between what Musk envisioned, and the for-profit that was ultimately created. They suggested a “small adjunct” for-profit would be permissible, though OpenAI’s witnesses showed non-profits with large commercial arms are common. 毫无疑问，另一个影响陪审团的事实是，马斯克在 2017 年花费了大量时间试图获得 OpenAI 潜在营利性附属机构的独家控制权。马斯克采取了“红脸白脸”策略，试图说服联合创始人让他完全控制 OpenAI 的营利性附属机构——给他们免费的特斯拉汽车，并威胁要扣留捐款。他的这些努力让他的律师陷入了困境，他们需要说服陪审团，马斯克设想的营利性机构与最终创建的营利性机构之间存在重大差异。他们暗示一个“小型附属”营利性机构是可以接受的，尽管 OpenAI 的证人指出，拥有庞大商业部门的非营利组织很常见。
Indeed, there’s a very plausible counter-factual where Musk took one of the offers his cofounders made to split their equity more evenly, and finds himself today as one of OpenAI’s largest shareholders — just not the controlling one. But several times during the trial, Musk’s associates testified that he refuses to invest in any business he could have sole control over. 事实上，有一个非常合理的反事实情况：如果马斯克接受了联合创始人提出的更平均分配股权的提议之一，他今天可能会成为 OpenAI 最大的股东之一——只是不是拥有控制权的那个。但在庭审期间，马斯克的同事多次作证称，他拒绝投资任何他无法拥有独家控制权的企业。
The failure of Musk’s claims because he filed them too late has been cited as a technicality, but the statute of limitations has substance behind it: People and businesses make important decisions and spend resources based on their understanding that what they are doing is permissible. If someone like Musk waits too long to sue, then the cost of unravelling all those decisions can outweigh a just reimbursement. No members of the jury have spoken about how they arrived at their verdict. However, they were asked to consider if, before Aug. 5, 2021, Musk should have known that OpenAI was spending resources outside its mission or launching for-profit affiliate. The answer to that is clear: Musk himself was doing those things. 马斯克的诉讼因提起过晚而失败，这被视为一个技术性问题，但诉讼时效背后有其实质意义：个人和企业基于对自身行为合法性的理解来做出重要决策并投入资源。如果像马斯克这样的人拖延太久才起诉，那么推翻所有这些决策的成本可能会超过合理的赔偿。陪审团成员没有透露他们是如何达成判决的。然而，他们被要求考虑在 2021 年 8 月 5 日之前，马斯克是否应该知道 OpenAI 将资源用于其使命之外，或正在启动营利性附属机构。答案很明确：马斯克本人就在做这些事情。