“I did say that I would commit up to a billion dollars, yes.”

Live updates from Elon Musk and Sam Altman’s court battle over the future of OpenAI Musk concedes that he mentioned a billion-dollar commitment to OpenAI, but the actual number he contributed fell far short of that — in his telling, because he lost faith in the mission. “I contributed my reputation, which nobody else was aware of at the time, these things all have value, without me it would not exist, I came up with the name, which means open source,” he says — but Gonzalez Rogers directs him to actually answer the question. “In monetary terms, I contributed $38 million,” he concludes. A deposition indicates his last $5 million quarterly contribution was in May of 2017, and he stopped paying for rent in 2020. Savitt brings upanotherX post, this one from 2023, where Musk says “I’m still confused as to how a non-profit to which I donated ~$100M somehow became a $30B market cap for-profit.” The deposition indicates Musk was mistaken in the $100 million number, but he maintains on the stand that “I think $38 million was a lot of money.” A free daily digest of the news that matters most.