Under oath this week, Elon Musk told a court that a 2015 conversation in which he warned Google co‑founder Larry Page that advanced AI could "wipe out humanity" helped push him to co‑found OpenAI. Musk said Page dismissed the risk so long as AI itself survived and called him a "speciesist" for being "pro human," an episode he presented as part of his wider dispute with OpenAI.

Court testimony centres on a personal split On Tuesday, Elon Musk returned to a story he has told before — this time under oath. In testimony during his lawsuit against OpenAI, Musk described a conversation with Larry Page that he says helped push him into creating the nonprofit lab. Musk told the court he warned Page about the possibility that artificial intelligence could at some point "wipe out humanity." According to Musk, Page reacted by saying that outcome was acceptable so long as AI itself survived. Musk characterised Page's stance as dismissive of human life and said Page called him a "speciesist" for being "pro human." Musk described Page's attitude as "insane." Those remarks are part of a longer narrative Musk has repeated in interviews and in his authorised biography. But Tuesday marked the first time he related the episode in a courtroom setting as evidence in his dispute with OpenAI. At issue in the trial are claims Musk has made against OpenAI — including an allegation that a charitable stake was taken from him — and he has used the background of OpenAI's founding to explain his motivations. From close friends to estrangement Musk and Page were once close. The pair appeared together on lists of tightly knit business friendships as recently as 2016, and Musk spent time at Page's Palo Alto home. Page once told broadcaster Charlie Rose that he preferred to give money to Musk rather than to charity. That closeness frayed when Musk recruited Ilya Sutskever, then a prominent Google AI researcher, to help launch OpenAI in 2015. Musk testified that Page took Sutskever's recruitment personally and cut off contact with him as a result. The split over personnel and over how to think about AI safety has been part of public accounts of the companies and the people involved. Musk has repeated the story to biographer Walter Isaacson and in other public fora. Page hasn't issued a public comment on the courtroom account. Sutskever's role and the early OpenAI narrative Ilya Sutskever was central to OpenAI's early technical leadership. Musk's testimony linked Sutskever's recruitment to the broader rift between him and Page, suggesting that the hiring decision marked a turning point in their relationship. OpenAI's founding in 2015 is commonly discussed as a response to concerns about uncontrolled AI development. Musk told the court he saw the move as a way to push back against attitudes he believed were too cavalier about risk. He framed the decision as driven in part by a belief that Page didn't share his urgency on safety. The courtroom airing of the private dispute adds a personal dimension to legal claims that are otherwise framed as corporate and contractual. Musk's account — that a friendship collapsed over both an ethical argument and a hiring choice — became part of his explanation for why he helped create OpenAI. How the story has been told before The tale Musk repeated in court has circulated in public for years. It appears in published biographies and in interviews, and it was flagged by profiles that noted Musk and Page's once-close ties. In 2016, profiles of Silicon Valley leaders placed the pair among a group of business figures described as quietly friendly. Two details have recurred: Page's apparent willingness to prioritise a future with advanced AI, even at human cost, and Musk's portrayal of himself as taking a precautionary, safety-first stance that led him to help launch OpenAI.

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This article was created with AI assistance.