Elon Musk tells the jury that all he wants to do is save humanity

At the helm, Elon Musk positions himself as savior.

Why is Musk giving the jury so much information about his origin story? Despite being, by days, the richest individual in the world, Musk has implied that all of his ventures are about the well-being of humanity. The company Rocket SpaceX was founded as “life insurance for life as we know it”; Electric car maker Tesla was founded because it believed that continued reliance on fossil fuels “could be very harmful to the environment and humanity as a whole.” (On the stand, he dubiously claimed he founded Tesla.)

He said he worried about AI during his college years, that it could be a “double-edged sword”, which could “solve all diseases and make everyone prosperous, or kill us all”. He suggested that AI had two consequences: utopia Star Trek one, or the dystopian Terminator A. He wants the future to look more like Gene Roddenberry’s, not James Cameron’s. This was his intention in co-founding OpenAI.

Musk presented himself as a hero – the good guy who cares about humanity, suggesting that Altman is the opposite.

This could prove to be an effective strategy, especially when compared to Altman, whose experience as co-founder of the long-forgotten social media app Loopt, and his years as an associate at Y Combinator, might seem much less magnanimous.

Musk went so far as to claim that Altman was a thief. “It’s very simple: It’s not okay to steal from a charity. That’s my view and furthermore, if the defendants are found not guilty, this case will become a case law. It will become a precedent and set a precedent for the looting of all charities in America,” Musk said. “If the verdict is reached authorizing the looting of a charity, the very foundation of charitable giving in America will be destroyed.”