Elon Musk’s 7 biggest stumbles on the stand at OpenAI trial

埃隆·马斯克在 OpenAI 庭审证人席上的七大失误

Elon Musk seems tired and cranky. On Thursday, he took the stand for the third day in a four-week trial stemming from his lawsuit alleging that OpenAI abandoned its mission and should be blocked from taking the company public later this year. If Musk plays his cards right, Sam Altman could be ousted and OpenAI would remain a nonprofit forever. But Musk stumbled at least seven times in ways that possibly put his chances at winning in jeopardy.

埃隆·马斯克看起来既疲惫又暴躁。周四，他连续第三天出庭作证。这场为期四周的庭审源于马斯克提起的诉讼，他指控 OpenAI 背离了其使命，并应被禁止在今年晚些时候上市。如果马斯克策略得当，萨姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）可能会被赶下台，OpenAI 也将永远保持非营利组织的状态。然而，马斯克至少出现了七次失误，这些失误可能危及了他的胜算。

Most notable, 1) OpenAI’s lawyer managed to get him to make several concessions over his own lawyer’s objections. 2) He also lost a fight to keep xAI’s safety record off the table, calling his reputation as a supposed AI savior defending OpenAI’s mission into question. 3) He repeatedly appeared dishonest, as OpenAI’s lawyer showed documents contradicting his testimony. And he twice appeared disingenuous, 4) first when confronted with calling OpenAI’s safety team “jackasses,” 5) and then again when admitting that he didn’t know what “safety cards” are, even though his own AI firm issues them. Perhaps most embarrassing, 6) he testified that he never loses his temper before raising his voice at OpenAI’s lawyer. And finally, 7) his lawyers failed to keep his ties to Donald Trump off the record, with the judge agreeing to hear discussions that might further discredit Musk’s testimony.

最值得注意的是：1）OpenAI 的律师在马斯克自己律师的反对下，成功让他做出了几项让步。2）他未能阻止 xAI 的安全记录被呈堂，这让他作为“捍卫 OpenAI 使命的 AI 救世主”的声誉受到质疑。3）他多次表现得不诚实，因为 OpenAI 的律师出示了与他证词相矛盾的文件。此外，他还有两次显得虚伪：4）第一次是在被质问曾称 OpenAI 安全团队为“蠢货”时；5）第二次是在承认自己不知道什么是“安全卡”（safety cards）时，尽管他自己的 AI 公司也在发布这种文件。最尴尬的或许是：6）他刚声称自己从不发脾气，转头就对 OpenAI 的律师提高了嗓门。最后，7）他的律师未能将他与唐纳德·特朗普的关系排除在庭审记录之外，法官同意听取可能进一步削弱马斯克证词可信度的讨论。

Since he was called as the trial’s first witness, Musk has spent more than seven hours over the past two days testifying that OpenAI made a “fool” out of him. He repeatedly claimed that OpenAI executives “stole a charity” after accepting $38 million in donations. Musk insists he was conned into giving “free funding” to start a nonprofit that Altman supposedly always intended to turn into an $800 billion company—not for the benefit of humanity, but to enrich Altman and his co-conspirators.

自作为庭审首位证人出庭以来，马斯克在过去两天里花费了超过七个小时作证，称 OpenAI 把他当成了“傻瓜”。他反复声称，OpenAI 高管在接受了 3800 万美元的捐款后“窃取了一个慈善机构”。马斯克坚称，他被骗去提供“免费资金”来创办一个非营利组织，而奥特曼据称一直打算将其变成一家价值 8000 亿美元的公司——这并非为了造福人类，而是为了让奥特曼及其同谋者中饱私囊。

On the other side, Altman and OpenAI—along with Microsoft, OpenAI’s biggest investor—have argued that Musk is merely jealous. He walked away from OpenAI and now, his own AI company, xAI, lags behind OpenAI. As OpenAI defends its founders and their plan for an initial public offering in the last quarter of 2026, they claim that Musk filed the litigation in a desperate move to slow down his biggest rival so that his firm can catch up. Further, Musk is accused of using the litigation as part of a harassment campaign trolling Altman.

另一方面，奥特曼和 OpenAI（以及 OpenAI 最大的投资者微软）则辩称，马斯克纯粹是出于嫉妒。他离开了 OpenAI，而现在他自己的 AI 公司 xAI 却落后于 OpenAI。在 OpenAI 为其创始人及其 2026 年第四季度首次公开募股（IPO）计划辩护时，他们声称马斯克提起诉讼是出于绝望，意在拖慢其最大竞争对手的脚步，以便自己的公司能够追赶上来。此外，马斯克还被指控利用诉讼作为骚扰和嘲弄奥特曼的手段之一。

Musk’s time on the stand was contentious over three days. According to a live feed from The New York Times, within minutes of the third day starting, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers had to reproach Musk, instructing him to stop being sarcastic and evasive. Prior to that, Musk had petulantly refused to answer any questions with a response other than saying, “You just can’t steal a charity.”

马斯克在证人席上的三天充满了争议。据《纽约时报》的直播报道，第三天庭审开始仅几分钟，伊冯·冈萨雷斯·罗杰斯（Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers）法官就不得不斥责马斯克，要求他停止讽刺和回避。在此之前，马斯克曾任性地拒绝回答任何问题，只会重复说：“你就是不能窃取一个慈善机构。”

Altman did not bother to show up for Musk’s first day of testimony, but he apparently wanted to watch Musk’s cross-examination. Grilling Musk was William Savitt, an OpenAI lawyer who previously helped Musk with a Tesla case before helping Twitter executives win the lawsuit forcing Musk to buy the social media platform. The tension between them was palpable, and Musk likely felt more exposed on the stand facing a former insider.

奥特曼没有出席马斯克第一天的作证，但他显然想观看马斯克的交叉盘问。负责盘问马斯克的是威廉·萨维特（William Savitt），他曾协助马斯克处理过一起特斯拉案件，后来又帮助 Twitter 高管赢得了迫使马斯克收购该社交平台的诉讼。两人之间的紧张气氛显而易见，马斯克在证人席上面对这位曾经的“内部人士”时，很可能感到更加暴露。

So far, Savitt has proven to be good at pushing Musk’s buttons. Promptly showing emails, documents, deposition testimony, and social media posts that contradict Musk’s testimony, the lawyer pushed the billionaire to make concessions before the jury on many topics Musk tried to deflect. That includes getting Musk to acknowledge that he left the company after the other co-founders refused to give him control over a proposed for-profit arm. Musk agreed that at the time he thought it was necessary to create that arm for the good of the nonprofit, which is exactly how OpenAI positions its for-profit shift today.

到目前为止，萨维特证明了自己非常擅长激怒马斯克。通过迅速出示与马斯克证词相矛盾的电子邮件、文件、庭外证词和社交媒体帖子，这位律师迫使这位亿万富翁在陪审团面前就许多他试图回避的话题做出让步。其中包括让马斯克承认，他在其他联合创始人拒绝给予他拟议的营利性部门的控制权后离开了公司。马斯克承认，当时他认为为了非营利组织的利益，建立该部门是必要的，而这正是 OpenAI 今天为其营利性转型所做的定位。

Overall, Savitt’s tactics have elicited responses that The Verge reported made Musk appear dishonest and hot-tempered to the jury. Savitt is hoping that at the end of the trial, the judge and jury will agree with his opening statements, which said that “we’re here because Mr. Musk didn’t get his way at OpenAI. Because he’s a competitor, Mr. Musk will do anything to attack OpenAI.”

总的来说，萨维特的策略引发了马斯克的反应，据《The Verge》报道，这些反应让马斯克在陪审团眼中显得既不诚实又脾气暴躁。萨维特希望在庭审结束时，法官和陪审团能认同他的开庭陈述，即“我们之所以在这里，是因为马斯克先生在 OpenAI 没有如愿以偿。因为他是竞争对手，马斯克先生会不择手段地攻击 OpenAI。”

While Musk struggled to keep his temper, the whole time, Altman “largely remained stone-faced,” the NYT reported. That composure may change when Altman eventually takes the stand and faces Musk’s lawyer, of course. Although he’s off the hot seat now, Musk’s temper could become a persistent problem, as multiple reports indicate it damaged his credibility with the judge and jury.

据《纽约时报》报道，当马斯克努力控制脾气时，奥特曼全程“基本保持面无表情”。当然，当奥特曼最终走上证人席面对马斯克的律师时，这种镇定可能会发生变化。尽管马斯克现在已经离开了风口浪尖，但他的脾气可能会成为一个持续存在的问题，多份报告指出，这已经损害了他在法官和陪审团心中的可信度。