Newsom Gave Felons Taxpayer-Funded Tablets. Then the Grooming Began

Luis Cornelio
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Newsom Gave Felons Taxpayer-Funded Tablets. Then the Grooming Began

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) A California taxpayer-funded program under Gov. Gavin Newsom to provide incarcerated individuals with digital tablets was allegedly exploited to access pornographic material and even groom children outside prison walls, according to a report published Wednesday.

The Newsom administration awarded a $189 million contract for the tablets, which were provided to inmates at “no cost,” according to the City Journal. The devices were intended to help prisoners communicate with family members and access education.

Instead, however, inmates have reportedly used them to watch porn and engage in explicit sexual conversations, according to dozens of death row inmates interviewed by City Journal.

“Some prisoners, according to a former high-ranking California corrections official, use their tablets to groom minors,” the report stated. “Though the state has claimed to regulate explicit content, the inmates told us that users can easily evade detection.”

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation pushed back on the report, claiming the tablets are “tightly controlled education tools” that facilitate access to “the Bible, education, reentry resources that actually reduce crime.”

Headline USA reached out to Newsom communications director Izzy Gardon for comment outside normal business hours. No response has been received by publication.

City Journal countered the administration’s statement, asserting that the “devices have become personal sex machines” for some inmates.

One such inmate is rapist and serial murderer Robert Maury, known as the “Tipster Killer” for anonymously revealing the locations of victims’ bodies in the 1980s.

Maury told the outlet that the inmates could receive “nude pictures” and access pornographic material through video chats, including by having callers place explicit content in front of the camera.

Death-row inmate Samuel Amador said he has watched “porn” and “short clips of my family at the Beach.” He added that the inmates find alternative ways to access the explicit content when guards intervene.

Another death-row inmate, James Tucker, convicted of killing three men, reportedly said he received videos of women dancing “in a thong.” This is the type of video he reportedly uses for sexual gratification.

In another instance, Nathaniel Ray Diaz, a felon serving three years for lewd acts against a 12-year-old girl, went on to use the jail-issued tablet to sexually exploit that same child and demand sexual photos, according to a federal grand jury indictment.

He allegedly forced the girl to speak with him “for hours, every day.” The DOJ said in April 2025 that he contacted the child despite having a 10-year no-contact order.

“He instructed the minor to create and transmit to him images of the minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct. When Diaz learned that someone had contacted law enforcement about the communications, he directed people to delete evidence,” the DOJ added.

Former California adult parole director Douglas Eckenrod told City Journal the Diaz case was likely far from isolated.

“I would bet my pension that there’s a vast amount of childhood pornography on the tablets,” Eckenrod said. “There are probably several thousand [children] that are currently being groomed.”

Despite those vulnerabilities, Newsom has promoted the initiative as part of his effort to overhaul California’s prison system.

“We are literally tearing down walls to reimagine our prison system, incentivize true rehabilitation, and end cycles of violence and crime,” Newsom wrote in a statement in 2024. “Brick by brick, we’re building a new future that will make all of us safer.”

According to reports, the Newsom administration agreed to pay Securus Technologies $189 million for the tablet program, expanding devices inmates already had access to beginning in 2018.

California’s prison population of roughly 90,000 inmates is set to benefit from the program.

Biden FBI Quietly Hid Trump Prosecution Files for Potential Post-2028 Case

Luis Cornelio
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Biden FBI Quietly Hid Trump Prosecution Files for Potential Post-2028 Case

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Another trove of newly unearthed Biden-era files suggest that the FBI attempted to retain purported evidence related to its prosecution of President Donald Trump until 2030 — when he would presumably be out of office.

The documents, reported Tuesday by Just the News, add to a growing body of records that have detailed the breadth of the aggressive actions targeting Trump, Republican lawmakers and conservative organizations connected to the 2020 election.

According to the report, the retention effort came as part of a broader push to preserve materials gathered by then-Special Counsel Jack Smith following the dismissal of related cases. Such materials are typically handled under DOJ procedures once a case is closed.

The documents in question were reportedly created in 2025, as Trump was preparing to return to office in January, and relate to investigations tied to the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

The decision to retain the evidence has raised questions about whether federal officials were preserving the option to revisit the case after Trump leaves office, when DOJ rules barring the prosecution of a sitting president would no longer apply.

The case itself was closed without prejudice, meaning it could be refiled at a later date.

As reported by Just the News:

“One of the key ‘Case Closing’ documents obtained by Just the News – originating from the FBI’s Washington Field Office’s CR-15 team – was dated a couple of weeks into Trump’s second term, on February 5, 2025, when many holdover FBI agents and leaders were still in place.

The newly-released closing document from early 2025 repeated the extensive claims of criminality against Trump, which had been pursued by Smith and the bureau, and it sought to retain all of the evidence for a half decade until at least February 2030, when Trump would be a former president once more and thus when the DOJ guidance prohibiting the prosecution of a sitting president would no longer be in force.”

According to the outlet, the document — titled “Arctic Frost – Election Law Matters – Sensitive Investigative Matter” — included supporting materials such as a “Deputy Special Counsel Concurrence” and the “Retention of Evidence Approval.”

In response to the findings, FBI Director Kash Patel said he had moved to eliminate the office involved in handling the matter.

“The American people deserve to know how this egregious weaponization of power to target political opponents and President Trump happened inside an institution meant to protect them,” Patel told Just the News. “We shut down the weaponized CR-15 squad, and we are going to keep following the facts until there is full accountability. The FBI exists to protect the country, not to preserve political prosecutions for a future administration.”

WATCH: CIA Whistleblower Testifies about Fauci’s COVID Coverup

Ken Silva
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WATCH: CIA Whistleblower Testifies about Fauci’s COVID Coverup

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) A CIA whistleblower testified on Wednesday about how former COVID czar Anthony Fauci suppressed the intelligence community’s findings that coronavirus originated from a lab in Wuhan, China.

Speaking to only Republicans because Democrats boycotted the hearing, CIA operations officer James Erdman said that his agency was initially leaning towards classifying COVID-19 as a lab leak—until Fauci put his thumb on the scale.

“Fauci’s role in the cover-up was intentional,” Erdman testified—explaining that the former COVID czar curated a list of biased researchers to convince intelligence agencies that the disease came from nature. In some cases, those same scientists may have been involved in COVID’s creation.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who chaired the hearing, blasted the specific list of biased scientists who were involved in the alleged coverup.

“For example, Dr. Ralph Baric collaborated with Dr. Zhengli Shi in Wuhan, China, to create gain-of-function coronaviruses. But Dr. Baric was also part of BSEG and an active consultant to intelligence agencies on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.

“Likewise, Peter Daszak received hundreds of millions of dollars from the U.S. government and worked with Dr. Shi on gain-of-function experiments. Daszak was also sent to China with the WHO to investigate the origins of COVID,” he added.

“So, the scientists commissioned to investigate COVID origins were, in some cases, the very scientists who were complicit in the gain of function experiments that may have created COVID.”

Dr. Paul was specifically scathing in his remarks towards Fauci.

“During COVID, intelligence officials arranged for Dr. Fauci to review highly classified intelligence assessments that could not even be sent outside the White House complex. But how can Anthony Fauci objectively comment on a discussion of COVID origins when he approved the very funding that may have created the pandemic virus?” Paul asked.

“From the outset of the pandemic, Dr. Fauci shaped the conclusions. Dozens of times, he referred to the idea that the pandemic originated in the lab as a conspiracy.”

Erdman and Dr. Paul were referring to what’s been deemed the “90-day sprint”—when former President Joe Biden ordered his intelligence agencies to conduct an expedited study into Covid’s origins.

As has been widely documented, the FBI concluded with “moderate confidence” that COVID likely originated from a lab leak. Three scientists at the National Center for Medical Intelligence, part of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, also reportedly concluded that “Covid-19 was manipulated in a laboratory in a risky research effort.”

The CIA was initially going to side with those agencies, according to Erdman. But after Fauci influenced the agency, the CIA decided to stay neutral. So when Biden was briefed on the matter in August 2021, no proponents of the lab leak theory were present.

In response to the Erdman’s testimony, the CIA said Paul’s committee “acted in bad faith by subpoenaing an Agency officer for testimony today without notifying CIA, despite having already obtained closed-door testimony from the individual previously.”

“The witness testifying today is not appearing as a whistleblower in pursuit of the truth, but instead in response to the subpoena issued by Chairman Paul,” CIA spokesman Liz Lyons said.

“This proceeding amounts to nothing more than dishonest political theater masquerading as a congressional hearing. As the CIA has already assessed, COVID-19 most likely originated from a lab leak, and efforts to undermine that conclusion are disingenuous.”

Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.

Report: Israel Wants US Special Forces Operation To Seize Iran’s Uranium

Headline USA Editor
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Report: Israel Wants US Special Forces Operation To Seize Iran’s Uranium

(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) The Israeli government wants President Donald Trump to order a US special forces operation to secure Iran’s uranium that’s enriched at the 60% level, according to a report from Axios, an operation that is fraught with risks and would mean the resumption of full-blown war in the region.

Israeli officials told Axios reporter Barak Ravid, a former IDF intelligence officer, that Trump was hesitant to order the operation because of the risks.

In an interview with 60 Minutes that aired on Sunday, Netanyahu hinted that he wanted to see US forces go into Iran to seize the uranium, which is believed to be buried under rubble following the June 2025 US airstrikes against Iranian nuclear facilities.

Asked how the uranium should be physically removed, Netanyahu said, “You go in, and you take it out.”

When asked if it would involve either US or Israeli special operations forces, he said, “Well, I’m not gonna talk about military means, but what President Trump has said to me, ‘I want to go in there.’ I mean, he’s said that publicly. He’s said it– and I think he’s right. And I think it can be done physically. That’s not the problem. If you have an agreement, and you go in, and you take it out, why not? That’s the best way.”

Netanyahu was then asked if the uranium could be taken out by force and said, “Well, you’re gonna ask me these questions. I’m gonna dodge them, so you can ask me that second time, third time, and I’ll dodge it second time, third time.”

President Trump said in an interview over the weekend that the US was surveilling where it’s believed the uranium is buried and threatened to kill anyone who attempted to recover it. 

“We’ll get that at some point… We have it surveilled. I did a thing called Space Force, and they are watching that… If anybody got near the place, we will know about it — and we’ll blow them up,” he said.

The president is considering restarting the full-scale bombing campaign against Iran as he continues to enforce a blockade against Iranian ports, which has involved US attacks on Iranian commercial vessels.

This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.  

Auto Debt Hits $1.68 Trillion as Car Payments Crush Americans

Jose Nino
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Auto Debt Hits $1.68 Trillion as Car Payments Crush Americans

(José Niño, Headline USA) American auto debt surged to $1.68 trillion by the close of 2025, marking a 37 percent jump from late 2018 when the total sat at $1.23 trillion, CNBC reported. A new analysis by The Century Foundation and Protect Borrowers provided the data exclusively to the outlet.

Approximately 86 million Americans, about one in four, currently owe money on auto loans or leases.

The average starting balance for a car loan hit $33,519 at the end of 2025, climbing from $24,782 in late 2018. During the same period, the typical monthly payment rose to over $680 from $506.

“People are seeing more and more of their paychecks eaten by their car payments,” said Angela Hanks, chief of policy programs at The Century Foundation.

The cost of vehicle ownership creates further burdens. Gasoline prices have spiked amid the Iran war, with the national average hitting $4.53 per gallon as of last Wednesday, according to AAA.

Escalating car prices have pushed many families to borrow more heavily. The average transaction price for a new vehicle has reached nearly $49,000, a significant leap from the $35,000 to $37,000 range in 2018, according to Edmunds.

“That’s a $12,000 to $14,000 move in less than a decade, and incomes haven’t kept pace,” said Ivan Drury, director of insights at Edmunds.

The inventory of affordable vehicles has essentially dried up.

“There are virtually no new vehicles for sale under $20,000,” Drury said. “Buyers who used to have options at the bottom of the market no longer do.”

Car manufacturers have shifted focus toward higher income customers who remain insulated from economic disruptions, said Sean Tucker, a managing editor at Kelley Blue Book.

“In 2017, [automakers] built 36 models priced at $25,000 or under,” Tucker said. “Today? Four.”

Over 43 percent of new vehicles are now bought by households making $150,000 or more annually.

“That’s a record figure,” Tucker said. “Automakers are serving that market.”

Yet lower income borrowers bear the heaviest load. Those earning under roughly $35,000 per year pay an average of $738 monthly, higher than the overall average. These borrowers also carry balances nearly $4,000 greater than households earning above $175,000.

The percentage of buyers accepting monthly payments of $1,000 or more climbed to 20 percent of all financed new vehicle purchases in the first quarter of 2026, rising from 17 percent a year prior.

“That extra money has to come from somewhere, which could be groceries, rent, savings, the emergency fund,” Drury said.

Elevated interest rates worsen the squeeze. The average APR for new car purchases reached 6.9 percent in the first quarter of 2026. Consumers with credit scores below 580 face rates above 18 percent, potentially adding $14,000 in interest alone on a $30,000 vehicle over six years.

Loan terms have also stretched to unprecedented lengths. More than 22 percent of financed new car purchases at the beginning of 2026 carried terms of seven years or longer.

“The longer these loans stretch, the harder it is to ever get out from under them,” Drury said.

José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino 

Trump Taps 53 Million Barrels from Oil Reserves Amid Iran War

Jose Nino
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Trump Taps 53 Million Barrels from Oil Reserves Amid Iran War

(José Niño, Headline USA) The Trump administration said Monday it would loan out 53.3 million barrels of crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to energy firms as fuel costs soar during the conflict with Iran, Just The News reported.

The release comes after Washington agreed in March to put 172 million barrels from the SPR on the market as part of a global coordinated release totaling 400 million barrels. That earlier effort aimed to curb the rising oil prices that have hit American wallets through higher gasoline and home heating expenses.

Nine companies, including Exxon and Marathon Petroleum Company, took 58 percent of the 92.5 million barrels the Department of Energy made available from the nation’s reserves, according to Reuters.

Under these arrangements, called oil exchanges, the DOE lends crude to companies that later return the oil plus additional barrels. The extra barrels effectively serve as interest on the borrowed supply.

Before this latest announcement, the DOE had already loaned 80 million barrels of the 172 million barrels previously designated for release from the SPR.

American petroleum reserves sit in 62 salt caverns spread across four locations on the Texas and Louisiana coastlines. Each cavern spans roughly 200 feet in width and plunges over 2,500 feet underground.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve contained 392.7 million barrels of oil as of May 1, according to figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino

Glenn Greenwald: CBS is Becoming ‘Israeli State TV’ Under Bari Weiss

Jose Nino
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Glenn Greenwald: CBS is Becoming ‘Israeli State TV’ Under Bari Weiss

(José Niño, Headline USA) Former Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren publicly thanked CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss after the network’s 60 Minutes interview with Benjamin Netanyahu adopted language aligned with Israeli government messaging.

Oren tweeted “Just watched Netanyahu’s interview on 60 Minutes and noted how CBS uncharacteristically stated that Hamas’s casualty figures do not distinguish between combatants and civilians and, for the first time, referred to ‘Hezbollah terrorists’ and not Hezbollah militants. Thank you, Bari Weiss.”

Glenn Greenwald seized on the statement as evidence that CBS has been reshaped to reflect Israeli government positions under its new ownership.

Greenwald tweeted “Long-time Israeli official thanking Bari Weiss for forcing Israeli propaganda onto every line of CBS News reports on the Middle East, even when they’re ‘interviewing’ Netanyahu. Larry ‘Friends of the IDF’ Ellison also deserves credit for buying CBS for this, but so does Bari.”

The Sunday interview marked Netanyahu’s first major American broadcast television appearance since the Israel-Iran war began. During the sit down with CBS Chief Washington Correspondent Major Garrett, Netanyahu declared the war “not over” and controversially stated he wants to reduce U.S. military aid to Israel to “$0 over the next decade.”

Oren served as Israeli ambassador to the United States from 2009 to 2013 and later sat in the Knesset. He has a documented history of pressuring CBS over its Middle East coverage. In 2012, he called the head of CBS News before a 60 Minutes segment on Palestinian Christians had even aired, labeling it a “hatchet job,” per a report by Mondoweiss.

Weiss became editor in chief of CBS News in October 2025 after David Ellison, CEO of Paramount and Skydance, acquired the network. David’s father Larry Ellison, the Oracle billionaire, is described as the largest private funder of the Israel Defense Forces in the United States and counts Netanyahu among his closest personal friends, per a report by Mint Press News. As part of the acquisition, Paramount purchased Weiss’s pro Israel digital outlet The Free Press for $150 million.

According to a New York Post report, Weiss personally booked Netanyahu for the 60 Minutes interview and bypassed veteran correspondent Lesley Stahl, who had spent months pursuing the sit-down interview. She assigned the interview to Major Garrett instead. The Independent reported that some staffers believed Netanyahu preferred Garrett as a more agreeable interviewer.

Greenwald has written extensively on this theme. His April 2026 Substack piece was titled “Bari Weiss’ Latest CBS Moves Show the Ellisons’ Drive to Create Israeli State TV.” The piece detailed how Weiss fired the CBS London bureau chief for pushing back on her Middle East coverage approach and replaced her with an editor known for relying heavily on Israeli sources.

José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino 

Biden DHS Secretary Now Says He Should Have Increased Border Control

Luis Cornelio
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Biden DHS Secretary Now Says He Should Have Increased Border Control

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Alejandro Mayorkas acknowledged Tuesday that the Biden administration should have tightened border security sooner — a stunning admission given that he served as DHS secretary for nearly the entirety of Biden’s four-year term.

Mayorkas, the first cabinet secretary impeached by the House in nearly 150 years, made the remarks during an interview at a Politico summit while again pointing to what he claimed was a “broken immigration system.”

His comments came more than two years after former President Joe Biden left office following one of the most permissive border periods in recent history, with more than 6.3 million encounters recorded at the southern border by the end of his term. Of those, at least 2.4 million illegal aliens were released into the country under a range of controversial Biden-era policies.

At the pace seen before Biden left office, Republican lawmakers said that total encounters were set to reach 10 million, though some argued those projections were conservative estimates.

In September 2023, CBP recorded 269,735 encounters at the southern border, marking the highest monthly total on record. By contrast, President Donald Trump’s administration has averaged roughly 9,000 to 11,000 encounters per month since he took office.

Mayorkas’s remarks quickly drew backlash from Republican lawmakers, who pointed to the irony of the comments given his repeated defense of the administration’s border policies while leading DHS.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., wrote that Mayorkas “had FOUR YEARS as DHS Secretary to stand up and say this, but didn’t.”

House Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., echoed the criticism: “Too little, too late. Americans died because of Mayorkas’ failure. That’s why we impeached him, and why his appearance at any kind of ‘security summit’ is unserious and insensitive.”

Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, argued the administration’s policies were intentional, stating: “Open borders wasn’t some accident– The Biden admin did it on purpose. They went as far as to sue Texas to stop us from building fences on our own border.”

Gill also warned that “if Democrats take back power, they will do it again until every American city becomes completely unrecognizable.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., said lawmakers should have impeached Mayorkas “sooner.”

Trump Posts AI Photos Showing Attacks on Iranian Military as He Considers Restarting War

Headline USA Editor
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Trump Posts AI Photos Showing Attacks on Iranian Military as He Considers Restarting War

(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) President Donald Trump on Tuesday morning posted a series of AI-generated photos on his Truth Social account, including some showing US military attacks on Iranian military assets, a bizarre threat that comes as he is considering restarting the full-scale bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic.

“Lasers: Bing, Bing, Gone!!!” read one image, which showed a US warship shooting down an Iranian aircraft with a laser. Another AI image depicted a US drone firing missiles at Iranian boats and read, “BYE BYE, ‘Fast Boats.’”

The president’s posting spree came after CNN reported that he is now much more seriously considering resuming “major combat operations” against Iran, though a decision isn’t expected before he departed for China on Tuesday, and it’s unlikely that he would restart the bombing while he’s in Beijing.

US officials speaking to Axios have previously suggested that if a deal isn’t reached with Iran by the time Trump returns from China, the US and Israel will resume full-scale bombing. The war could flare up at any moment as the US continues enforcing a blockade on Iran and has attacked and bombed Iranian commercial ships and Iranian ports over the past week.

Trump rejected Iran’s latest response in the indirect negotiations that are taking place through Pakistan as “totally unacceptable,” and Tehran has made clear that it won’t back down on its core demands and is ready to face another round of US-Israeli bombardments.

This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.  

 

OpenAI Chief Sam Altman Makes a High-Stakes Appearance in his Court Bout with Elon Musk

Headline USA Editor
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OpenAI Chief Sam Altman Makes a High-Stakes Appearance in his Court Bout with Elon Musk

(Headline USA) OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took the witness stand Tuesday to defend his business record in a trial pitting him against Elon Musk, rebutting testimony that disparaged his leadership at a pivotal time for the ChatGPT maker.

Musk, the world’s richest man, is seeking Altman’s ouster from the company leadership as part of a civil lawsuit accusing him of betraying their shared vision for OpenAI. Since its start as a nonprofit funded primarily by Musk, OpenAI has evolved into a capitalistic venture now valued at $852 billion.

More than two weeks into the trial in a federal courthouse in Oakland, California, neither of the tech titans has emerged as an overly sympathetic character. But nobody has more to lose than Altman.

Even if Musk loses the case, the trial has invited further scrutiny of Altman’s leadership at a crucial time for the company and its competition with Musk’s own AI firm and another rival, Anthropic, formed by a group of seven ex-OpenAI leaders. All three firms are moving toward planned initial public offerings that are expected to be some of the largest ever.

Under a barrage of questions by a lawyer for Musk, Altman said he did not agree with trial testimony that depicted him as dishonest.

“I believe I am an honest and trustworthy businessperson,” Altman said.

A jury that’s already heard about Altman’s character from a parade of his former allies and adversaries will ultimately decide the verdict. But the repercussions could reverberate widely.

“This is not looking good for any of them, and I think that that’s a little bit unfortunate for the AI industry at a time when the public perception of AI is quite negative and seems to be getting worse,” said Sarah Kreps, director of Cornell University’s Tech Policy Institute.

The lawsuit accuses Altman and his top lieutenant, Greg Brockman, of double-crossing Musk by straying from the San Francisco company’s founding mission to be an altruistic steward of a revolutionary technology. The lawsuit alleges they shifted into a moneymaking mode behind his back. Musk is seeking an unspecified amount of money to be paid to fund the altruistic efforts of OpenAI’s charitable arm.

While Musk, the head of SpaceX, Tesla and a slew of other companies, was well known by the San Francisco Bay Area jury pool, fewer knew who Altman was before the start of the trial, even if they were familiar with ChatGPT.

Since the start of the trial, testimony about Altman’s turbulent tenure at OpenAI has become prime fodder for internet jokes. One piece of evidence that has inspired countless memes was a text exchange between Altman and a company officer, Mira Murati, in 2023 during his short-lived ouster as CEO, when Altman asked if things were moving “directionally good or bad” and she wrote back: “Sam this is very bad.”

Jurors have heard from witnesses including OpenAI ex-board members Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley, who spoke about the decision to fire Altman in 2023 before they were themselves ousted from the board of directors when Altman returned to his role.

In video testimony last week, Toner said a starting point for the decision to oust Altman was when OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, a respected AI scientist, reached out to confide some of his own concerns.

“A phrase we used was ‘a pattern of behavior,’ so no one single cause,” Toner said. “The pattern of behavior related to his honesty and candor, his resistance of board oversight.”

Sutskever was instrumental in the unsuccessful attempt to oust Altman but later said he regretted his role in the shakeup. In his own testimony Monday, Sutskever confirmed that he wrote a 2023 memo to OpenAI’s board that characterized Altman as pitting his executives against one another and exhibiting a “consistent pattern of lying” that was causing a loss of trust and productivity.

He said he later backtracked and signed a letter supporting Altman’s reinstatement to try to keep the company from being destroyed.

The trial has carried risks also for Musk, who is pursuing an initial public offering this summer for his rocket ship maker, SpaceX, which could make him the world’s first trillionaire.

Sutskever testified to his early admiration for Musk as an entrepreneur but said that once they were working together as co-founders, Musk’s push for a controlling stake in the startup “just felt aggressive to me.”

OpenAI has brushed off Musk’s allegations as an unfounded case of sour grapes that’s aimed at undercutting its rapid growth and bolstering Musk’s own xAI, now part of SpaceX.

Altman and Musk both vied to be OpenAI’s CEO in its early years. In his testimony Tuesday, Altman said he had concerns about Musk’s attempts to gain more control over OpenAI, which was aiming to safely build a better-than-human form of AI called artificial general intelligence.

“Part of the reason we started OpenAI is we didn’t think AGI could be under the control of any one person, no matter how good their intents are,” Altman said.

He described what he called a “particularly hair-raising moment when my co-founders asked Mr. Musk about, well, ‘If you have control, what happens when you die?’”

Altman said Musk’s response was that maybe “control of OpenAI should pass to my children.” Altman said he did not feel comfortable with that.

Altman said Musk was known to be “fairly mercurial” and only trusted himself to make the right decisions that were not obvious to others but which Musk believed would “turn out to be correct.” Among the pressures on OpenAI were Musk’s repeated attempts to have his car company Tesla absorb OpenAI, a proposal Altman said would not have aligned with OpenAI’s mission.

Altman testified that OpenAI has ended up creating “through a ton of hard work, this extremely large charity” and sought to challenge Musk’s contention that Altman had violated the nonprofit’s original purpose.

“Mr. Musk did try to kill it, I guess twice,” Altman added, before Musk’s lawyer interrupted to object to Altman’s remark. The judge struck it from the record.

Near the end of his testimony, Altman said he had thought incredibly highly of Musk during his early involvement with OpenAI, but “felt he abandoned us” as he pulled away his commitment and financial contributions.

“It’s been an incredibly painful thing for me,” he said. He called Musk a “critical contributor” to OpenAI and attributed his leaving to jealousy as he was working on launching a competing AI startup.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press. 

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