Musk v. Altman Kicks Off, DOJ Guts Voting Rights Unit, and Is the AI Job Apocalypse Overhyped?

This week on Uncanny Valley, the team discusses the stakes behind the trial of Elon Musk against OpenAI’s leadership (and how Microsoft is trying to stay away from the drama). They also look into what recent layoffs announced at Meta and the industry at large say about the ways in which AI is—and isn’t—replacing jobs. Also, we dive into a WIRED investigation on how the Department of Justice has effectively hollowed out its voting rights work, and how this move could impact future elections. Articles mentioned in this episode: - Musk v. Altman Is a Battle for OpenAI’s Soul - Some Musk v. Altman Jurors Don't Like Elon Musk - ‘It’s Undignified’: Hundreds of Workers Training Meta’s AI Could Be Laid Off - ‘The Damage Is Massive’: How the Justice Department Dismantled Its Voting Rights Section You can follow Brian Barrett on Bluesky at @brbarrett, Zoë Schiffer on Bluesky at @zoeschiffer, and Leah Feiger on Bluesky at @leahfeiger. Write to us at [email protected]. How to Listen You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts and search for “uncanny valley.” We’re on Spotify too. Transcript Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors. Zoë Schiffer: Welcome to WIRED's Uncanny Valley. I'm Zoë Schiffer, director of business and industry. Brian Barrett: I'm Brian Barrett, executive editor. Leah Feiger: And I'm Leah Feiger, director of politics and science. Zoë Schiffer: Today on the show, we're going to a federal courthouse in Oakland, California to take a look at what has been going down in the Elon Musk versus Sam Altman trial. We're going to get into how the trial goes way beyond the rivalry between these two guys and could have major implications both for OpenAI, but also for the AI industry at large. Brian Barrett: Speaking of AI, we'll also discuss whether Meta's recent layoffs are a turning point for AI taken over certain jobs. Leah Feiger: And we're going to touch on a story that has gone a little bit under the radar, but it matters now more than ever. The DOJ voting section has been gutted this past year. Dozens of lawyers have been ousted, and these lawyers were the ones in the government that were upholding the Voting Rights Act, lots to get into. Zoë Schiffer: OK. So let's kick things off with the Elon Musk versus Sam Altman trial. So the jury trial kicked off earlier this week, but the legal feud between these two guys dates back to 2024. Back then, Musk sued OpenAI, basically alleging two things. First, he said that the company had strayed from its founding mission to create AI that benefits all of humanity. And second, that he was misled by Sam Altman and OpenAI's president, Greg Brockman, into contributing millions of dollars because he thought he was supporting a nonprofit. As you might have guessed, OpenAI's very weird structure is kind of central to this dispute. While its nonprofit arm controls the company, it created a for-profit arm to raise outside capital, and now it's trying to become a public benefit corporation. OpenAI has denied the allegations. They're saying that Musk just wants to hurt OpenAI because now he has a competitive AI lab, which is xAI. And in fact, the lawsuit was only filed after Musk started xAI, although the feud has been going on basically since Elon Musk left OpenAI years and years ago. Now, it's up to a jury and the judge who's overseeing the case to ultimately decide what happens next. Leah Feiger: This is something so aggressively not on my beat that I am watching. I don't know. The last time that I paid this much attention to a trial that was not politically aligned was like maybe Anna Delvey. This is so interesting to me. Zoë Schiffer: We got her, you guys. We finally found the thing to make Leah care about AI. Brian Barrett: Amazing. We did it. Leah Feiger: This is so good though. This is so juicy. I love that this is going back to the beginning. I love that a really key part of this is Elon Musk being like, "I made a charitable donation and it's not charity now and I'm pissed." Brian Barrett: I think too, Leah, that one of the reasons it's not just that they're like big stakes, of course they're big stakes, but these are also very messy companies, individuals. It is gossip. There is so much swirling around OpenAI, xAI, SpaceX, Elon himself. The whole thing is a great big mess. I think even Zoë just talking about even the structure of OpenAI is the most convoluted, twisty, turny kind of thing. So, yeah, there is a lot to unpack, but most of all, just delightful to watch people be petty on the stand. Billionaire versus billionaire violence. Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. I mean, these two men absolutely hate each other and they have for quite a long time. But again, just to get into the stakes a little bit, they're really high for OpenAI. The company could have to unwind its current structure. Greg Brockman and Sam Altman could have to leave. And obviously, they're pulling out all the stuffs. They have these hardcore legal teams. All of the executives are expected to testify. They've already been in court. And then to give you a little bit of background on just how ridiculous it has already been, Elon Musk was promoting a New Yorker profile about Sam Altman that alleged he had kind of this history of being a bit deceptive, duplicitous. He was actually boosting that post on X ahead of the trial. Sam Altman was hitting back. Another key moment that I thought was really funny was when one of the lawyers' microphones was going in and out and the judge says, completely deadpan, "Yeah, we're funded by the federal government." Which I felt like was a dig right to Elon Musk and DOGE. Leah Feiger: This is it. This is what I'm here for. Brian Barrett: A little DOGE dig. Here's senior writer, Paresh Dave, who was there yesterday when Musk took the stand. Paresh Dave: Hello, this is Paresh Dave reporting from the federal courthouse in Oakland, California. Elon Musk took the stand in his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI. Elon mostly testified about his life history and his job history, how he moved to North America from South Africa. Then he talked about how he came about to founding OpenAI. And Elon told this story about how he was living with Larry Page, having long discussions about the future of AI. And Larry expressed that he didn't mind if AI destroyed humanity. Elon Musk thought that was a big concern. And so Elon had discussions with various people, including Sam Altman, and that's how he came to found OpenAI. And that's what led to OpenAI starting as a nonprofit. Musk and Altman entered this morning bypassing the front doors, coming into the building another way. And photographers have been trying to chase photos of them. Overall, a packed courtroom with about a hundred or so people, including many attorneys from both sides, and an overflow room, mostly full of media and other members of the public interested in following this trial. Zoë Schiffer: My favorite part—Paresh didn’t say this verbatim—but the lengths that Elon Musk went to, to make Sam Altman seem like a little nobody in this opening monologue were so funny. He was like, "He was a random investor I barely knew." Basically implying that Elon made him who he is today. I thought that was silly. Brian Barrett: So much of this is all the spin that's going on around the trial has been fascinating to me too. Zoë, you mentioned that Elon boosted that story on Sam Altman, which is—he also just controls the algorithm. He could also just make it into—go into people's feeds. But we've had more than that too. It got to the point where a judge had to tell them to knock off their posts because they've both been posting so much about each other that they've been admonished for their social media activity. Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. Yeah. Another thing that came up on day one of the trial, and this was something Maxwell Zeff wrote about for WIRED, was that jury selection was a little bit difficult because people do have such strong priors about both of these men. They are national, internationally famous. It's very difficult to find someone who doesn't have a preconceived idea about Elon Musk. And in fact, there were a couple people who were ultimately picked who did have preconceived ideas, but ultimately were able to say, "Look, I can put this aside and do my civic duty." Leah Feiger: You're saying that in such a kind way almost so, like preconceived notions. People were saying horrific stuff about Musk. They were like, "This man is destroying the world. If you put me on this jury, I will do my very best to send him to jail." It was that kind of level of stuff. Zoë Schiffer: We're in the land of the vintage Tesla bumper stickers. You cannot find a Tesla in Berkeley, California, in Oakland, California that just does not have a bumper sticker on it that says, "I bought this before Elon went crazy." They're everywhere. They're everywhere. But I also want to touch on where Microsoft is in all of this, because obviously, they're named as defendants in the lawsuit. We're expecting Satya Nadella, the CEO to testify, but they've been a little bit quiet. Brian, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on what we're expecting from Microsoft, why they're kind of letting OpenAI duke this out while they also have a big financial stake in the outcome of this trial. Brian Barrett: Because of the mess. They don't want to be involved in the ... I mean, they've got this giant— Zoë Schiffer: You don't see Satya Nadella posting on X about it? Brian Barrett: No. I feel like Microsoft has been—Microsoft, obviously, very close relationship with OpenAI. Although as of this week, they have a more open relationship where OpenAI can now use other people's clouds, but— Zoë Schiffer: Also very Berkeley. Brian Barrett: Very Berkeley. Zoë Schiffer: We call that poly. Brian Barrett: So I think Microsoft just doesn't—wants to be as far away from all of this as it possibly can. The fact that Satya's going to have to testify is something that they can't avoid, but I think this is just something—Microsoft increasingly is placing its own bets in AI. It's increasingly sort of separating their—not totally separating, but their relationship is not quite so intertwined with OpenAI, and I think rightly so. I think it's clear, especially given, as we said, how much restructuring, how much turnaround, how much mess. Again, I keep using that word that OpenAI has gone through. You maybe don't want to put all of your eggs in that basket. So I don't know, I think we're going to see Microsoft continuing to try to place as much distance as they can from this as possible while still retaining as much financial upside as they can. Zoë Schiffer: One thing that's not directly part of this trial, but I still think is really important to name is just Elon Musk has this whole safety component to his argument. He thinks that OpenAI's founding mission was to create AI that would benefit all of humanity. He feels like they've gone back on that mission. They've put profits over people, that kind of thing. And he's making this argument that it's like growth at all costs. It's not prioritizing safety, beneficial AI, all of those things. At the same time, he is running an AI company, xAI, that puts very few guardrails on what people can do with those models. They famously have launched AI girlfriends that talk to people in kind of a romantic and sexual manner. People are able to jailbreak the models and do all sorts of things with them. It occasionally goes off the rails and does kind of crazy things itself. And so I think while, again, this isn't being litigated per se, there is a deep irony in Elon Musk making these arguments about OpenAI, which frankly has a lot of guardrails in place, although it possibly needs more depending on who you talk to. Brian Barrett: Yeah. It's a chance to kneecap a major competitor, right? That seems to be it, especially everyone's racing to go public, Anthropic, SpaceX, which owns xAI, OpenAI. And so if one of those leaders in this race has to give up a bunch of money, lose its CEO, and become a nonprofit all of a sudden, that makes SpaceX's prospects look a whole lot better. Leah Feiger: And I guess my follow-up here is, I'm sure that our reporters have been talking to legal experts that can weigh in on this. Does he have a shot? Zoë Schiffer: I think he has a shot. I think it really depends on who you talk to. I think personally, I would be surprised to see Elon Musk be completely victorious in this case, but I think they're taking it seriously because it's not impossible. He's throwing everything he can at this. And while I do think OpenAI has a lot of evidence that Elon Musk knew along the way that they were restructuring, that they had to do that to raise outside capital because it is so horrifically expensive to build frontier AI models, it's Elon Musk. So I don't think you can ever completely discount his legal fights even when they seem spurious at the outset. Brian Barrett: Set aside the legal merits, who knows? We've got on the jury, we've got a psychiatrist, we've got a painter, we've got a former Lockheed Martin employee, and that's the beauty of the American justice system, but who knows what this group of people is going to decide this on or why. We'll find out soon. There's another story involving the AI industry going on this week. It's actually been going on for months, but we had an inflection point recently that makes it, I think, worth talking about now. Meta recently announced layoffs that are supposedly being made because of AI potentially. At least that's what people say. The company plans to cut 10 percent of its workforce, which is going to be about 8,000 employees, and it's also planning to close another 6,000 open roles. The same day Meta makes that announcement, Microsoft said it would offer voluntary buyouts to nearly 9,000 employees. It's the first time that Microsoft has made that kind of offer. The memo where Meta shared the news about its layoffs, it doesn't explicitly mention AI, but the company has obviously announced that it's nearly doubling spending on the technology. It is huge amount of sums going towards data centers, CapEx, infrastructure, and it's not just white collar employees that are being affected. That gets a lot of the headlines, but there's a particular group of contractors that WIRED's Joel Khalili talked to that's being hit by the layoffs as well. It's more than 700 workers based in Ireland. And what's interesting there is they're the ones who have been training Meta's AI models themselves or among the people, the contractors who work to train these models. They're employed by a Dublin based firm called Covalen, which handles various content moderation and labe