Elon Musk has taken AI rival Sam Altman to court. Their ongoing trial has offered new details of their work and personal lives.

Elon Musk has taken AI rival Sam Altman to court. Their ongoing trial has offered new details of their work and personal lives. WEF

Musk told the jury that he donated millions to OpenAI because artificial intelligence, in the wrong hands, could lead to a "Terminator" scenario in which "AI kills us all."

Google, he said, was also a key reason he helped fund the nonprofit dedicated to advancing AI in a way that would benefit humanity.

"I thought it was extremely important to have a counterbalance to Google," Musk said, adding, "Google did not seem to care about AI safety at that time."

But when leaving OpenAI to start his own AI venture, Musk also pointed to Google — only this time as the reason he would not prioritize safety, OpenAI president Greg Brockman told the jury.

"He said the most important thing would be to catch up to Deepmind," Brockman said, referring Google's AI lab.

To do that, Musk said, AI safety would have to take a back seat, Brockman told jurors, adding that Musk referred to Google as the "wolves" and AI safety advocates as "the sheep" who would become irrelevant unless they became wolves themselves.