Elon Musk warns of AI dangers in court, casts himself as humanity’s defender

The courtroom battle between Elon Musk and Sam Altman has taken an unexpected turn. What began as a high-stakes legal dispute over the direction of OpenAI has, at moments, felt more like a philosophical debate about the future of humanity itself.

At the centre of it all is Musk, who has used his testimony not just to argue his case, but to frame a much larger narrative. One where artificial intelligence is both humanity’s greatest opportunity and its most dangerous gamble, and where he sees himself as a crucial counterbalance.

Elon Musk says he just wants to save humanity

On the stand, Musk has leaned heavily into his personal story, taking the jury back to his early days in South Africa and his move to Canada with “2,500 in Canadian travelers’ checks and a bag of clothes and books”.

From there, he walked through his career, from early ventures like Zip2 and PayPal to his current companies.

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The underlying message has been consistent: that his work has always been driven by concern for humanity’s future.

He described SpaceX as “Life insurance for life as we know it”, suggesting its mission is to safeguard civilisation beyond Earth. Tesla, he argued, was born out of a desire to move away from fossil fuels, which he warned “could be pretty bad for the environment and humanity as a whole”.

Musk also tied this worldview directly to the founding of OpenAI, presenting it as an effort to ensure artificial intelligence develops in a way that benefits society. In doing so, he cast himself as a figure motivated less by profit and more by long-term human survival.

That framing extended to his criticism of Altman. Musk accused his former collaborator of straying from the organisation’s original mission, going as far as to claim wrongdoing.

“It’s very simple: it’s not okay to steal a charity. That’s my view and moreover if the defendants are found not guilty, this case will become caselaw. It will become precedent and give precedent to looting every charity in America,” Musk said. “If the verdict comes out that makes it okay to loot a charity, the entire foundation of charitable giving in America will be destroyed.”

Musk’s warning against AI

Alongside his broader narrative, Musk has returned repeatedly to a familiar theme: the risks posed by artificial intelligence. He told the court that his concerns date back decades, long before AI became a mainstream issue.

“I had many dinners with many people talking about AI safety,” he recalled, adding that one of those conversations involved Altman himself. He also pointed to discussions with Larry Page, which he said ultimately pushed him to create OpenAI as a counterweight to what he saw as insufficient caution within Google.

Musk claimed he even raised concerns with Barack Obama before AI became a widespread topic. “There is no agreement to limit AI and so there is currently an AI acceleration that’s happening very quickly with a number of companies primarily in the US and with China,” he said.

He described AI as a “double-edged sword” that could “solve all the diseases and make everyone prosperous, or it could kill us all”.

Expanding on this, he introduced the idea of artificial general intelligence, warning, “AGI is when the AI becomes as smart as any human, arguably smarter than any human, and I think we are getting close to that point my guess is that AI will be probably as smart as any human as soon as next year.”

For Musk, the stakes are nothing short of existential, with the future split between utopia and catastrophe.

A U-turn in opinion

Yet Musk’s tone in court sits in contrast with his earlier public optimism about AI. In the past, he has spoken enthusiastically about a future shaped by intelligent machines, suggesting they could unlock unprecedented prosperity.

“The future is going to be amazing with AI and robots enabling sustainable abundance for all!” he wrote, painting a picture of a world where automation delivers widespread wealth and opportunity.

He has also argued that as AI and robotics advance, traditional work could become optional. Humans, he suggested, might no longer need jobs at all, instead choosing how to spend their time freely while machines handle labour.

This vision extends to a world where robots outnumber humans and provide abundant goods and services, fundamentally reshaping society’s economic structures.

Against that backdrop, his courtroom warnings appear more urgent and cautionary. The shift does not necessarily contradict his earlier views, but it does highlight the dual nature of his thinking: AI as both a pathway to abundance and a potential existential threat.

In the courtroom, however, the emphasis is clear. Musk is not just arguing about corporate governance or legal boundaries. He is making a broader case about control, responsibility and the future of a technology that could redefine civilisation itself.