Mira Murati tells the court that she couldn't trust Sam Altman

Mira Murati, OpenAI's former chief technology officer, testified under oath that chief executive Sam Altman lied to her about the safety standards for a new artificial intelligence model. In a video deposition shown during the Musk v. Altman trial on Wednesday, Murati said Altman falsely stated that OpenAI's legal department determined a new model did not need to go through the company's deployment safety board. Murati answered no when asked if Altman was telling the truth. Murati said Altman made her work more difficult during her tenure. She described the issue as management related and said she asked Altman to lead with clarity and not undermine her ability to do her job. In the case of one GPT model, Murati checked with general counsel Jason Kwon and found misalignment with Altman's statements, so she ensured the model went through the safety board. Murati agreed with descriptions of Altman pitting executives against each other and undermining her. Cofounder Ilya Sutskever said Altman exhibits a consistent pattern of lying, undermining his executives and pitting them against one another. Former board member Helen Toner said executives shared evidence of Altman lying and being manipulative in different situations. The OpenAI board said Altman was not consistently candid in his communications with the board when it fired him. Murati, who was briefly appointed interim chief executive, criticized the board's decision and said OpenAI was at catastrophic risk of falling apart. She left the company in 2024 and founded Thinking Machines Lab.