In testimony, Ilya Sutskever said he avoided the internet after voting to remove Sam Altman, missing key Microsoft moves and staff reactions.
A crucial detail emerged in the unfolding legal drama around OpenAI: Ilya Sutskever, a board member who voted to remove Sam Altman, said he deliberately stayed away from the internet in the days immediately after the decision.
Sutskever testified on Monday in Elon Musk’s lawsuit against Altman and OpenAI, describing how he watched events play out without checking updates online. When asked whether he “pretty much” avoided the internet over the weekend, he answered yes.
The decision to fire Altman had already become one of the defining business stories of 2023. sparking turmoil inside the company and prompting rapid. highly visible reactions from within OpenAI and beyond.. Against that backdrop. Sutskever’s choice to disengage from online coverage highlights how quickly a major corporate pivot can spiral even when key decision-makers step back from real-time signals.
Sutskever is widely viewed as one of OpenAI’s most important early employees.. He also has a notable career path: Musk and Altman recruited him away from Google. where he reportedly gave up a $6 million salary.. At OpenAI. Sutskever saw an opportunity to help build AI capabilities he believed could be transformative in ways that could benefit all of humanity.
In Musk’s lawsuit, that promise is at the center of the dispute. Musk accuses Altman of betraying that vision by steering OpenAI toward a model that, in his view, effectively turns the organization into a for-profit entity through a partnership with Microsoft.
Sutskever’s Monday testimony offered a different explanation for why he voted to remove Altman.. He said that long-simmering issues with Altman’s leadership contributed to his vote alongside other board members.. According to his account, those problems included a pattern he believed involved lying and pitting other executives against one another.
He also testified that he had authored a memo laying out the case for Altman’s removal. In that memo, Sutskever argued his concerns were grounded in what he perceived as repeated behavior over time, and he presented his reasoning to Musk’s lawyer, Steven Molo, during the testimony.
The most striking operational detail from the testimony was that Sutskever said he missed a specific offer from Microsoft that was sent Sunday.. The report stated that Microsoft offered to hire every OpenAI employee.. Because Sutskever was not checking the internet, he said, he did not see that outreach at the time.
During the same period described in the testimony. 95% of OpenAI employees reportedly signed a letter threatening to quit unless Altman was reinstated as CEO.. Together. these two developments—Microsoft’s offer and the staff letter—show how quickly leverage and bargaining positions formed inside the company.
Sutskever said the combination of events ultimately led him to change course and support Altman’s return. He told the court that he believed the company would be destroyed if he had not supported Altman’s reinstatement.
Soon after Altman returned, Sutskever quit OpenAI, the testimony indicated. He now runs Safe Superintelligence Inc., a company he heads, while maintaining an ownership position in OpenAI.
Sutskever testified that he still owns shares in OpenAI. He also said those shares could be worth as much as $7 billion, underscoring how personal financial exposure runs alongside corporate governance tensions in cases involving high-stakes AI institutions.
The testimony adds another layer to a story that is about more than leadership turnover.. Board decisions. staffing loyalty. and external partners can realign within days. especially when the organization’s future is tied to both investor expectations and the strategic interest of major technology companies.
Sutskever’s admission that he avoided online information also raises questions about how quickly people make sense of fast-moving corporate crises.. Even when a decision is made through internal judgment—based on governance concerns. as he described—events outside the boardroom can intensify and force recalculations. including the kind of pressure that can come from mass employee coordination and large-scale offers from competitors.
OpenAI board Sam Altman Ilya Sutskever Elon Musk lawsuit Microsoft offer AI governance Safe Superintelligence