Wednesday episode the Musk v. Altman the trial started with a unique proposition: OpenAI wanted to drag its ass into the courtroom and bare it to the jury. Good thing Lady Justice wears that headband.
Artificial intelligence giant Sam Altman’s lawyer, Bradley Wilson, turned to U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers and presented her with a compact golden statue with a white stone base. It showed the back of a donkey – with two legs, a butt and a tail – and included the inscription: “Joshua Achiam, for your safety, never stop being a donkey.”
then-OpenAI employees Dario Amodei and David Luan made the gift to Chief Futurist Achiam, who started at the company as an intern in 2017 and now leads work examining how society is changing in response to artificial intelligence. Achiam testified Wednesday that he interrupted Elon Musk’s 2018 farewell speech to OpenAI to warn that the billionaire’s desire to develop AGI at Tesla could come at the expense of safety. Wilson added that the trophy commemorates some “strong language” Musk used in response to Achiam – allegedly: calling him an asshole.
“He growled and called me an asshole,” Achiam said, describing the remark as tense and unfriendly.
OpenAI initially requested that the physical object be produced during Achiam’s testimony, arguing that it would complement their case. Although Musk’s team found the statue to be irrelevant, Judge Gonzalez Rogers said she would consider allowing it when references to it appear to corroborate the story. However, she didn’t seem thrilled about it being accepted as official evidence, which would mean it would be in the court’s possession. “I don’t want it,” she said.
OpenAI’s lawyers ultimately decided not to try to show the physical specimen to the nine jurors. But Ahiam spoke of its importance. “What mattered to me was that my colleagues agreed that it was important to stand up for principles and stand up to powerful people like Elon,” he said.
Marc Toberoff, Musk’s lawyer, told WIRED in an email that the trophy is “irrelevant to the claims in the case and the issues raised in the case and is prejudicial in nature.”
OpenAI representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the lawsuit, Musk accuses OpenAI of effectively stealing from the charity and misusing his $38 million in donations to build an $850 billion business. In response, OpenAI argued that Musk was always more concerned with controlling AGI’s top-notch lab than with funding the nonprofit.
Early in the trial, Musk’s lawyer, Steven Molo, asked Musk if he had ever called an OpenAI employee an “ass.” Musk said at one point that “it’s possible,” but he didn’t mean it to be offensive. “Sometimes you have to use language that takes people out of their comfort zone if we’re going in the wrong direction,” Musk said.
OpenAI has long been proud of its asshole. When Wall Street Journal when asked about the 2023 monument, Altman replied, “You’ve got to have some fun… This is the stuff culture is made of.”
Meanwhile, Achiam testified that he sold at least $10 million of OpenAI stock and still holds tens of millions of dollars more. Not a bad result for the accused “dumbass.”
Update 13/05/26, 15:11 ET: This story has been updated with testimony from Joshua Achiam and a statement from Musk’s lawyer.