First Come, First Served: Dispatches From Inside the Musk-Altman Trial

Here's what triggered the world's richest man under cross-examination.

First, let’s talk about how great it is to watch billionaires navigate a courthouse. There’s no VIP green room. No velvet ropes. No special bathrooms for the rich. As I washed my hands, there was OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in suit and tie, waiting as awkwardly as any of us do for one of the two urinals to free up. And one of the first stories I heard that day was that on Tuesday security had asked Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, for I.D. at the door (he had none), before also asking him to remove his belt for the metal detector. He went past us a few times in the hallways—flanked by security, sure, but clearly with nowhere private to hang out. God bless America.

I attended the proceedings not by virtue of my new role at CNN, not because I knew most of the reporters and all but one of the camera crews there, but because I brought a driver’s license and showed up early enough (5:32am) to get one of 30 spots in line for anyone who wants one. On one side of me in line in the dark was the Washington Post’s A.I. reporter. On the other side was Janet, who had driven in from Walnut Creek because she just wanted to watch. I went through security just before OpenAI President Greg Brockman, who had to put his phone and wallet through the same machine I did. When I arrived upstairs and was asked who I was with, I simply said “I’m a member of the public,” and was ushered through the doors. U.S.A.!

Photographers hoping for a shot of Altman or Musk as they walked the upstairs hallways of the courthouse.

So what did I witness, there in the room with Elon Musk on the stand, with Sam Altman huddled with his lawyers, with the soft clack of two dozen journalists typing as fast as they could?

Sensitivity. Runaway pride. The deep, unquenchable thirst for credit and legacy that being the leaders (figureheads?) atop a new industry seems to produce. And a strange mix of corporate jargon, creative accounting, and ruler-of-the-world language that veers between admirable pluck and dystopian satire.

Here’s an example: