This Monday (11), the co-founder and former chief scientist of OpenAI, Ilya Sutskevertestified at Elon Musk’s trial against OpenAI and revealed that he had a stake valued at around US$7 billion (R$34.3 billion) in the company.
The revelation makes Sutskever the second OpenAI billionaire exposed during the trial. Last week, Greg Brockman claimed to have a stake valued at almost US$30 billion (R$147.2 billion).
Sutskever, who testified shortly after Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, said he had been considering removing Sam Altman as CEO of OpenAI for at least one year before the board vote that resulted in the executive’s temporary dismissal.
He said Altman’s conduct, including allegedly undermining colleagues and pitting executives against each other, “was not conducive to any great goal”, including the secure development of artificial general intelligence (AIG).
The former chief scientist said he told other board members that Altman demonstrated a consistent pattern of liesin addition to weaken its executives and stimulate internal conflicts. Later, however, Sutskever signed a letter with OpenAI employees asking for the return by Altman.
According to him, the measure was a kind of “Hail Mary” (last attempt) to prevent the company from being “destroyed” following the events surrounding the firing, including Microsoft’s attempt to hire Altman and Brockman.
Asked about promises made to Musk that OpenAI would remain non-profit, Sutskever said: “I made no such promise. OpenAI’s mission is bigger than its nonprofit or for-profit structure,” he added.
Sutskever also claimed to have opposite to Musk’s proposal to merge OpenAI with Tesla in the company’s early years. He further said do not agree with Musk’s proposal to take a stake in 62.5% at OpenAI, classifying the idea as “aggressive“I knew that Mr. Musk had many other obligations and many other companies that he managed,” he said.
Net Worth of Former OpenAI Executive
- The trial also exposed the size of the fortunes accumulated by the main names linked to OpenAI;
- According to estimates presented in the process, Sutskever currently has a stake valued at around US$7 billion (R$34.3 billion) in the company;
- During his testimony, Sutskever also revealed that Google tried convince him to stay in the company before the creation of OpenAI;
- According to him, the company offered an annual salary of US$6 million (R$29.4 million) so that he would not leave his position.
The former executive described the value as “an impressive amount of money” to him at the time. Sutskever left OpenAI in May 2024 and founded the startup Safe Superintelligencevalued at US$32 billion (R$157 billion) after capturing US$3 billion (R$14.7 billion) until April this year.
The former chief scientist is named as a member of the so-called “OpenAI mafia”, a group of former employees who left the company to create billion-dollar AI startups.
Among them are Dario and Daniela Amodeifounders of Anthropic; Mira Muratiformer chief technology officer at OpenAI and creator of Thinking Machines Lab; Aravind Srinivasco-founder of Perplexity; and Liam Feduswhich launched the Periodic Labs in 2025.
Source: www.olhardigital.com.br
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