Inside the OpenAI vs. Elon Musk Courtroom

This is our full conversation with Mike Isaac, recorded live on TBPN. We discuss what it’s actually like inside the OpenAI vs. Elon Musk courtroom, from early morning lines and limited seating to the unexpected mix of superfans, reporters, and curious spectators, how Elon’s legal strategy blends big-picture “save humanity” messaging with more tactical arguments around control and competition, and why the case often feels less like a traditional trial and more like theater, where personality, narrative, and jury perception may matter just as much as the underlying facts. Sign up for TBPN’s daily newsletter at TBPN.com Follow TBPN: https://TBPN.com https://x.com/tbpn https://open.spotify.com/show/2L6WMqY3GUPCGBD0dX6p00?si=674252d53acf4231 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/technology-brothers/id1772360235 https://www.youtube.com/@TBPNLive

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00John Coogan?

  Let's bring him into the TVP in Ultra Dome. These are the New York Times. Mike, how you doing?

• 0:05Mike Isaac?

  Yo, what's up?

• 0:07John Coogan?

  Good to see you.

• 0:07Jordi Hays?

  Great to see you.

• 0:08John Coogan?

  So.

• 0:09Jordi Hays?

  Wait, so what's up with? Yeah, so. Four day work week? Are they living in the future?

• 0:14John Coogan?

  Yeah. Is this universal basic vacation days?

• 0:17Mike Isaac?

  It's court is incredible in that I got to sleep in till like nine AM today, which is, which was great. But I made up for it because like literally every day this week, I've gotten up at five o'clock in the morning to get my cold ass down to the Oakland courthouse and stand outside for two hours. So I don't know, but it's fun.

• 0:37Jordi Hays?

  How does it? How does it work? Who gets priority? Is it first come, first serve? Like if some random person, if some random person shows up before you.

• 0:47John Coogan?

  They can just get it and you're just out?

• 0:49Jordi Hays?

  Or, or you get to like show some sort of like press, like, how does it work?

• 0:54Mike Isaac?

  Yeah, I wish I was cool enough to like cut. Well, here's the thing.

• 0:57Jordi Hays?

  You should get an artist pass.

• 1:00John Coogan?

  VIP pass.

• 1:01Jordi Hays?

  No, not VIP, artist pass. It's a level above.

• 1:04John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 1:06Mike Isaac?

  So there are 20 reserved seats in the front row for press. But the issue is, uh, only one person per outlet gets it. And we are doing like live blogging for like the big moments, like opening statements and for Elon. And so myself and my colleague Cade came on the first, the whole first week. And so, so we've had a trade off. He's gotten the like press skip the line thing. And I've been with, um, the other folks in the 30 unreserved seats in the back.

• 1:38Jordi Hays?

  That are watching YouTube videos.

• 1:40Mike Isaac?

  Yeah, yeah. Oh my God.

• 1:42Jordi Hays?

  Or Stripe sessions.

• 1:44Mike Isaac?

  Literally one dude fell asleep. I was actually impressed.

• 1:49Mike Isaac?

  Yeah.

• 1:50Jordi Hays?

  It seemed pretty entertaining. Uh, you didn't seem like you were falling asleep. I was keeping up on the, through the live blog.

• 1:57Mike Isaac?

  He reading my nightmares Twitter too. I, it's been fun, honestly. Have you guys ever done like court case things or have you ever been sued or been in court?

• 2:07Jordi Hays?

  I've never been in court.

• 2:08John Coogan?

  I I went to a mock court in high school where everyone picks a role. I think I was.

• 2:15Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, we larp in court.

• 2:17John Coogan?

  Literally larping.

• 2:18Jordi Hays?

  In high school.

• 2:19John Coogan?

  But other than that, never.

• 2:20Jordi Hays?

  I the whole this whole time, it seems it seems insane. Like with with with the with the recent NASA, the moon mission, I was like, this should be a live stream. Plus a pay per view for the key moments.

• 2:32John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:32Jordi Hays?

  For this trial. It's like we have huge budget deficits and we have these incredible media products. Why are we not doing pay per views, right?

• 2:41Jordi Hays?

  But.

• 2:41Mike Isaac?

  That's the funny thing. Oh, I was just gonna say, that's the funny thing about like federal courthouse stuff. Like, there's a lot of different rules around filming and electronics. I covered some cases in DC and I can't even bring a laptop or phone in those courthouses. So like, this is actually a very permissive judge, just because she believes in like press access and stuff. And we've had way more access than you would normally get in federal court cases.

• 3:09John Coogan?

  Okay, so you you've been to these court cases before, but if I follow your Twitter, it feels like you're making a bunch of rookie mistakes. You you you only had egg bites at 5:30 a.m. Your bite energy is wearing off. You forgot your butt pillow. You forgot to fill your water bottle. Like, is this amateur hour or are you a professional? What's going on?

• 3:29Mike Isaac?

  I think I think that you you guys might know me well enough that that is kind of how I operate most of my life. Like, kind of chaotic, but it is.

• 3:38Jordi Hays?

  Focus on the important stuff.

• 3:40Mike Isaac?

  That's right. Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, I can file. I may be like bleeding and hungry, like limping across the finish line. But we're getting, I'm tweeting for you.

• 3:49Jordi Hays?

  Uh, what what is your what is your what are some like high profile cases that that stand out that you've covered in the past?

• 3:58Mike Isaac?

  So I got to do, let's see, my first one was insanely boring, but important. The Apple versus Samsung thing back in the day and like them suing for Samsung copying, like literally everything they do. Um, I did, uh, Dallas, actually Zuckerberg's like, I think maybe one of his first testimonies on the stand when Zenimax was suing Meta for the Oculus acquisition. Remember that?

• 4:24John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 4:25Mike Isaac?

  And that was in Dallas. That was super fun. Uh, that I almost got kicked out of the courtroom for tweeting.

• 4:31John Coogan?

  Whoa.

• 4:32Mike Isaac?

  Um, and then I did, uh, the DC FTC Meta one, and I almost got kicked out of the courtroom again. Actually, I did get kicked out of the courtroom for wearing the Meta Ray-Bans. These are not it. But I wore the Meta Ray-Bans and then they started putting, I was, I was fucking super stupid for doing it. But then they started putting signs up saying, do not wear these glasses in court.

• 4:54Jordi Hays?

  But you weren't, you, you were just using them as glasses or you were being sneaky in your recording?

• 4:58Mike Isaac?

  No, I was like, look, I can't record. I won't record. I was trying to play by the rules and like they were, they are my prescription glasses. Yeah. But the bailiff, the bailiff was like-

• 5:08Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, it's too much, it's too high risk for them.

• 5:10John Coogan?

  Cause you could just-

• 5:10Jordi Hays?

  Cause you could have like turned off the, the light or whatever, or something like that.

• 5:14John Coogan?

  Uh, talk about the, the, the fans. Are there really Elon Musk fans in the courtroom? Like what, what motivates someone to go and watch that live? Is this their UFC front row ticket? Like why are they there?

• 5:29Mike Isaac?

  Uh, so you guys would have fun. Like it actually is, a lot of court cases are boring to people who don't care about this stuff, right? Like you and I may be super into, like the FTC trial was super fun for me because it's like, oh my God, Mark Zuckerberg emailing Sheryl Sandberg and talking about path. Like this is incredible. And like the average person has no idea what we're talking about. But this is like a circus. There are people who genuinely love Elon or are genuinely worried about the end of the world happening. Um, and I think it's a really good thing that there's public access to these courts. Like I think like the average person can come in and show up. And that's what, I think after the, the buzz of Twitter and like people seeing that this

• 6:14Mike Isaac?

  is an event, we got a much longer lines and like folks who are local, like just like, I know a PM in tech from Meta that came. I know like a guy from Box made it in. Uh, just if you get a seat- If you get there early enough and you can get a seat and you can just hang out. It's like, and I think it's really great. I think it's great that people are, yeah, are there for it, you know? It shouldn't just be me.

• 6:36John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 6:37Jordi Hays?

  What about the, what about the jury? Does the jury seem excited and honored to have the opportunity to be, to be a part of, of a case like this? Or are they, are they nodding off? It'd be, it'd be so funny. It'd be like so out of just like off the internet.

• 6:54John Coogan?

  To make selection, you can't be super biased.

• 6:56Jordi Hays?

  Sam, who? Who? Like Sam, this guy Sam and Greg and this guy who makes cars and I don't even know what they're talking, a bunch of, a whole bunch of mumbo jumbo. Like, there's gotta be one person on the jury that was just so not tapped in that, that they're just confused.

• 7:14Mike Isaac?

  I think jury selection was super interesting for that. I can't say, it's actually interesting. I can't say too much about the jury right now because like, there's all these rules about.

• 7:23John Coogan?

  Oh, sure.

• 7:24Mike Isaac?

  Like some random person could go up to them if you identify them or try to alter it.

• 7:29John Coogan?

  Something like that, yeah.

• 7:29Mike Isaac?

  Totally. But I will say like during jury selection on Monday, it is an incredible slice of life and you get like how familiar or unfamiliar people are with the tech industry despite being here, you know? Like some folks are like, I have no, I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't know what AI is. I don't know what AGI stands for. So it really, it really played and voir dire and jury selection is so important for cases like this. Just, it makes the dynamic of the facts don't necessarily always matter, but the vibe can really matter, which I think is a benefit for Elon, honestly.

• 8:08Jordi Hays?

  Yeah. Were they, were they trying to weed out, they're trying to weed out people that are a little bit too excited about the case, right? You want the people that are like in order to have a, a, but, but then talk, I, I didn't understand why, why is the jury just like giving like an advisory decision? What is the history of like, why do you, why do you have a jury when the judge is ultimately going to make the final call? It feels like just kind of putting on like a show. Cause like theoretically the judge could just, sit through a bunch of depositions and make a call.

• 8:43Mike Isaac?

  True. No, I, I think, um. So I do think they want, more often than not, want a jury of these CEOs and company peers to be the deciding factor in what they feel like is good for a civil claim like that, I think is fairly standard. But to your point, the judge can throw out their verdict, which is like, is, and judges, I don't think tend to want to do that because like they want to have reliance on, this is the public, the public should have a say in what goes or whatever. But the judge can do that. I will say also, she is responsible for, if they're, if Elon, or sorry, if OpenAI

• 9:25Mike Isaac?

  is found liable, judge decides on remedies, damages, and things like that. So she still has an active role in that regard and in steering the case. But I really do think that courts often prefer, or often appreciate a peer, a jury of your peers, making some of these decisions. So I don't think it's going to be like, completely disregarded, is what I would say.

• 9:49Jordi Hays?

  Yeah. How has Judge Rogers done so far, in your view? Just reading, reading the live blog, she seemingly has like, zingers, pretty, pretty like, good, like, one-liners, the time. I'm just like, kind of imagining what it's like in there, because obviously, I'm just reading text, but she's had like, seemingly like, some pretty good comedic timing.

• 10:11Mike Isaac?

  Yeah. Oh, my God. She's so funny. She's like, real, like, as you might imagine, there's like, a number of different types of judges and how they handle their court or whatever. And she just takes no BS from anyone, including the lawyers. And like, when they try to like, tap dance, or break the rules, or whatever, she's like, no, shut up. Or like, get back on track, or, no, no, no. Actually, the best part, or the most insane part, so one woman in the overflow room, who is just, not just, it was a civilian going to attend and watch it, started recording, which is, again, against the rules, if not the law, in a federal courthouse. So the judge brings her in, and in

• 10:55Mike Isaac?

  front of a room of like, 100 people, just like, dresses her down, yells at her, saying, did you not see any of these signs? What are you doing? I will kick you out. I will, it was like, I would have like peed my pants and started crying if she had done that to me. It was deeply, deeply intense.

• 11:12John Coogan?

  It's it's teacher, you know, berating a student. Yeah, glasses in session. Glasses in session here.

• 11:19Mike Isaac?

  It was brutal.

• 11:21John Coogan?

  How how how do you how have you been processing Elon's positioning? It feels like the two, the two stories that I've heard him sort of telling are one about his commitment to technology, humanity, saving the world through, you know, Tesla and the electrification of the internal combustion engine and SpaceX making, you know, humanity multiplanetary. And then, and that's like a very high level, you know, high concept pitch. And then he also sort of brings it down and starts beating this drum on like, you can't steal a charity. You can't steal a charity. Is that the correct framing that he's trying to go like high and low there?

• 12:04John Coogan?

  How much have he's been beating each of these drums? And how useful is that?

• 12:08Mike Isaac?

  So I totally agree. That's the framing. And I think this really goes to the point of a lot of these trials are, pageantry is the wrong word, but let's say theater in that you are, this is a jury trial, and it's a different thing than just convincing a judge, who I would say is much more attuned to the facts and merit of the case, and like, hammering in on the evidence and like, something that may be boring to you or me or whatever, or the jury is going to be more important to a judge. Elon, I think from day one, has leaned into the persona of Elon and just from him being on the stand and saying, I care about humanity. I mean, he says he does whatever he does or doesn't, but like,

• 12:52Mike Isaac?

  just leaning into this, like, I'm a world-changing entrepreneur, and this stuff is existential, and I'm the one who has cared about it. And like, that may work on a jury, you know, like, there are people who still love him. And, you know, OpenAI is really hammering the facts of what they feel are their side of the case and saying Elon has known about, Elon has never been in The dark, he quit in a huff. He uh, he's made it very clear. He hasn't been there. He's trying to sue now, or he's trying to file this claim now because he's catching up because he's behind as an ex AI competitor. But like, again, this is all stuff that maybe it doesn't play. Like, this is why jury trials are so risky for companies a lot of the time, you know?

• 13:35Mike Isaac?

  It's really, it's fun for me. It's probably not fun for, for everyone in there, but it's fun to see it play out.

• 13:42Jordi Hays?

  How did the distillation comments come up?

• 13:47Mike Isaac?

  That was like, that was the news of the day yesterday. You guys obviously returned to it.

• 13:52Jordi Hays?

  You, you, you broke it, right?

• 13:53Mike Isaac?

  I think I did. Yeah. I think it was one of those things where I was like, holy shit, this is news. And I think like, folks like started figuring it out, but I was like, gotta put it on Twitter. And uh, uh, so the point, uh, so Bill Sabat is lead counsel for OpenAI. He was sort of talking about, the, the point was made in the context of they want to hammer home. Elon is creating a competitive product and also he keeps stressing that this is doom, world ending technology. But at the same time, he's, he's, he's ripping off the toss and using the technology to improve his own technology in an explicitly for-profit company.

• 14:38Mike Isaac?

  And so the, the point is like hammering him as a hypocrite. And I think, look, like, I think Elon has a history. In his businesses, it would not be controversial to say, to, to like, say one thing and do the other. And I think he sees it as like, rules of engagement. That's the game in the, you know, no holds capitalism land. But like, that is how it came up and that they didn't go super deep into it, but they wanted to make the point. He's using OpenAI's tech, he's breaking the toss and he's partly distilling it. And I want to say also that Elon went out of his way to say, everyone kind of does this. It's like an open secret in the industry, which I think is like also kind of true, but that doesn't make it, there's like, it's, it's fraught, I guess is what I would say.

• 15:22John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah, it's a, there's obviously a continuum there, which is why he tried to hammer that it was like partly. I imagine most car companies have taken a rival car for a spin. Have they taken the car apart? You know, there's a line there and there are laws, but that's a separate issue, of course.

• 15:39Jordi Hays?

  Has, um, has anything come up with the jury around prediction markets? Because I was thinking we've now seen insider trading across every possible prediction market, right? From, uh, you know, I'm sure from like,

• 15:53John Coogan?

  That's very interesting.

• 15:54Jordi Hays?

  You know, even, even the Maduro thing was, was, was interesting because a lot of people were like, oh, he's just betting on himself. But then I saw that I was like, hey, that's sending a signal to the entire world that an attack could be happening, which puts your entire team at risk, right? So like very, very clearly like US military personnel should not be able to trade against our own military's actions ever, right? And that they need to come down really hard on that.

• 16:21John Coogan?

  Are you just up crazy trading on this? Are you just trading on this crazy? Are you, are you gonna retire off this as a?

• 16:28Jordi Hays?

  The reason, the reason that the jury thing is, is, is bad is it creates a potentially an incentive for the jury to basically work together and say like, hey, like we all have to be here for like a month. Like we could at least make some money on it. And then you only need to get like four, you only need to get like four or five of these people to.

• 16:47John Coogan?

  The chat is saying monetize jury duty. Oh my God.

• 16:52Jordi Hays?

  No, but, but, but like, it seems like very important that this does not happen, right? Because, because there's very, like they, they tried to select a jury that just doesn't care about the AI race. They don't care about this or that. And, and, but if they are self-interested in some capacity, they could be like, well, my, my decision is not, is not even really legally binding. It's just advisory. Like I may as well, you know, I don't know, right?

• 17:20Mike Isaac?

  I, I think that's a great point and like something that I imagine like court systems aren't even prepared for fully yet because like,

• 17:29Jordi Hays?

  Well, there hasn't been a big, there hasn't been a big trial. Like there's been, I'm sure some like epic Apple stuff that was slightly big, but, but nothing where, nothing, nothing, anything at this scale with this much, even just this much volume already from people that are generally interested in.

• 17:48Jordi Hays?

  In in the story.

• 17:49John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 17:50Mike Isaac?

  Yeah, and like I think the other thing you should know is like they're not sequestered like they show up kind of like before.

• 17:57John Coogan?

  Like anyone else.

• 17:57Mike Isaac?

  Right before they yeah, like they literally like we see them walking in and that the marshals there's like a ton of like US marshals there. They're like, is anyone a juror in this line? The juror gets to go in. So and at the end of every day, the judge is like, goes back over the rules saying, do not discuss this case with anyone. Do not watch it on TV. Do not look at it on your phone, which is like a verbal command.

• 18:21Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, don't go on your phone.

• 18:22Mike Isaac?

  Taking your phone.

• 18:23Jordi Hays?

  Just don't.

• 18:24Mike Isaac?

  Exactly.

• 18:24Jordi Hays?

  Hey, don't use the most addictive thing that has ever been created in human history. Don't use the thing that you use for six hours a day.

• 18:32John Coogan?

  That you probably can like turn your lights on and adjust your thermostat.

• 18:36Mike Isaac?

  Totally. I mean, it's that's a it's something I had not thought of, Jordy, but it's a really good like, when does that come up at some point, you know, like that's very worried.

• 18:46Jordi Hays?

  No, it just seems like.

• 18:48Mike Isaac?

  But just ever.

• 18:48Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, it seem it seems like something that that that the court should be paying attention to heading into a a decision from from the jury.

• 18:59John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 19:00Jordi Hays?

  Uh, how much is the history between opening eyes counsel Bill, uh, who represented? He represented Twitter when Elon was trying to get out of the the the Twitter buyout. Uh, and ultimately, it feels like the X slash Twitter acquisition has worked out pretty well for Elon. He's made a number, a number of plays. So hard to hard to imagine him like, you know, deeply regretting buying it, even though at the time he was happy to get out until Bill said, no, we're doing this.

• 19:35Mike Isaac?

  I you know, it's funny. Um, he is.

• 19:40Mike Isaac?

  I can't underscore enough how different the tenor chain. I mean, look, it's like it's opposing counsel. So it's always going to be different, but Elon went from like, I am a entrepreneur, sort of like rosalie explaining to you what I think the future should look like and like very concerned for the future of the human race to like openly antagonistic to Savitz questioning and like, and the thing that I'm very curious how this plays with the jury is like Elon was very, he's like, I'm a literal guy, like the questions are asking me are like too complicated or like they're not yes or no questions, which is like fair, like as a grievance, but also the thing he either doesn't understand or doesn't care about understanding is that that's just lawyers.

• 20:25Mike Isaac?

  Like that's the whole point of a cross examination is to ask these questions as as reductively as possible to to get a type of answer they're looking for and his job or his, uh, you know, pre-trial sort of discussions with his own lawyers is to know how to navigate those essentially while also telling the the truth. So I don't know, they they just don't like each other, or at least Elon doesn't like Savit and you can very, it's very clear that he's just like mad at that. And whenever Elon gets sassy, I would hear like clearly people who are fans of of Musk like laughing behind me or being like, yeah, you got him like, blah, it's just, it's very, it's very funny. It's like kind of a, it's different than the usual vibes, is what I'd say.

• 21:10John Coogan?

  That's very interesting.

• 21:11Jordi Hays?

  Outlook, what's going on Monday? What's the outlook?

• 21:15John Coogan?

  Yeah, it feels like this week was the Elon side for the most part. Are we going to flip to Sam and Greg and and some other OpenAI folks? Or is there an intermediate step? Like, do you, do you have a clear view of what the next couple of weeks look like?

• 21:31Mike Isaac?

  Yeah, so it's a little rough because we we have witness lists in full that they presented and are in evidence, but they you don't really learn who's coming until like very soon that week. It's actually a giant pain in the ass for me and for reporters who are trying to schedule. But like, so we Jared Burchall, who's like Musk's family office guy, just finished testifying. Uh, we're gonna get this guy Stuart Russell.

• 21:56John Coogan?

  That's today?

• 21:57Mike Isaac?

  No, no, that was yesterday.

• 22:00John Coogan?

  And you said Burchall was very dry. Like, was that intentional? That feels like that does not work in favor of like swinging a jury. Was that more for the judge? Like, what was the goal of that of that testimony?

• 22:13Mike Isaac?

  I think it was to really just sort of show how Musk was trying to set up this like, like, structure things as a non nonprofit and like hammer home. Like, he's always wanted it to be a nonprofit and he's not sort of like, so it was, it was, uh, I believe it was Musk's witness who OpenAI then cross-examined. And OpenAI used the occasion to show an email that had like a proposed equity structure for Musk. And so like, they both kind of used him differently. But I think like Burchall is like a essentially an accountant, books guy, like behind the scenes. So I think it was like, here's the peek behind the curtain. Here's how they were dealing with the finances.

• 22:57Mike Isaac?

  Here's how Musk was like, this is only a charity. And then, uh, OpenAI's lawyers were like, actually, check this shit out. So I, but I think like, I don't, I honestly don't know. They also struck some of his testimony because this is a little complicated. But if you remember last year, OpenAI or Musk made a bid with Ari Emanuel and some other companies.

• 23:21John Coogan?

  To buy the whole company.

• 23:23Mike Isaac?

  And that opened the door, or that sort of complicates things for Musk's side because there might be some of those discussions around that bid admitted into evidence and that may not be good for Musk because if there's like weird compromising emails in there. So like it's gotten complicated, but next week we're getting Stuart Russell's safety researcher. We got Greg Brockman, maybe Sam Altman, maybe not. It's four days a week in court only, so we may not have time, but I gotta be ready. I'll be there most of the time, but I'll be there for Sam for sure. And then, I don't know.

• 24:05Jordi Hays?

  So rewinding a second, did they bid, did they bid on the PVC, like the, the for-profit arm?

• 24:12Mike Isaac?

  Yeah, it was the, yeah, and they, they wanted to just sort of, I, I don't actually know what their plans were afterwards, but like, it was like trying to take over the asset, those assets basically, and then, uh, you know, morph it into what they, I mean, and they knew that it wasn't gonna get accepted as a bid, basically, but it was like, uh, and then Burchall, sorry, Burchall in court was saying this was us trying to sort of establish a pricing mechanism to like value the actual entity itself and that was gonna help them somehow. I actually am not quite sure how that would help them somehow, but, uh, someone in the chat is probably smarter than me on that.

• 24:54Mike Isaac?

  But like, it was them trying to sort of take that over. And I think OpenAI said publicly at the time, this is like a stalling tactic. They're trying to like, slow us down while also using this in court in this concurrent lawsuit later, basically. So it's all like really messy and I think even Musk's side took a risk there if those emails get into discovery, but it's unclear to me if that's gonna happen. If we, if they are, then we may see them next week.

• 25:25Jordi Hays?

  Why would, why would that, that kind of discovery process around that bid be coming up now? When everyone involves was well aware that it had happened quite a long time ago?

• 25:38Mike Isaac?

  So I think because of a line of questioning with Burchall yesterday about the bid, that like if that happens on the stand, and again, like a lawyer gut check me here because I'm a stupid tech reporter. But if that happens on the stand, then it gives an entry point for OpenAI's lawyers to be like, okay, well, we need to, you know, now admit, basically the judge said to Musk's side, you opened this line of questioning. Now it's fair game to go into this and then you can start calling new evidence in around that, like to open up discovery. It's like really like strategy and like you have to be careful in your strategy when you're asking certain questions in court.

• 26:19Mike Isaac?

  I've been learning a lot about it. So maybe it's a strategic misstep by Toboroff, Elon's lawyer, but it's not quite clear yet.

• 26:26John Coogan?

  Do you have a idea of the purpose of the AI safety researchers testifying? What the goal is there? Like, is that aligned with one particular side? Like if there's more nonprofits, like you still probably wind up with Anthropic, DeepMind, XAI. Like, like having one, like, you know, more focused nonprofit going on for a long time doesn't necessarily lead me to like, oh, then we wouldn't be in an AI race. Like it's not a clear solve for me, but I imagine that there's that some one side is trying to position this as important. But do you have any predictions for what that goal is?

• 27:05Mike Isaac?

  Totally. So this is Musk's witness and your point is well made, which is like, okay, if even if you kneecap one, like good luck on literally everyone else. And like, there's been a lot of time spent. Elon talking smack about Larry Page and how he like doesn't trust him anymore. That's actually been really fun to hear.

• 27:25Mike Isaac?

  But the the point I believe is, this is actually a point of contention. So the judge does not, the judge prohibited like going too far into like doomerism into the world stuff. And she's like, look, that's kind of a sideshow distraction, like extinction, humanity stuff is not the point of this case. But must side called this guy because they want someone. And this is my, my understanding is that Stuart is like very aligned with the idea that AI is super dangerous and gonna harm us all. And so if you get this guy in there, make that point.

• 27:57Jordi Hays?

  How does that not, like?

• 28:02Jordi Hays?

  If this guy's gonna come on and say that AI, like the most insane like doomer point of view, which I think is, everyone's gonna have their own opinion around this debate.

• 28:13Mike Isaac?

  Sure.

• 28:13Jordi Hays?

  Worth completely worthy of of having and and talking about. Uh, but, but how does Elon square that with like, I'm trying to build the biggest cluster possible? And, you know, distill on the rest of the industry's model and, you know, create tens of of gigawatts of space compute? And like, how, how does that? How, does that, like, can't this kind of witness potentially?

• 28:42Jordi Hays?

  Backfire in some capacity?

• 28:44Mike Isaac?

  No, I mean, you're, you're, you're exactly right in that squaring that circle is pretty hard. And like exactly what, um, OpenAI is like hammering on.

• 28:53Jordi Hays?

  I should be, I, I, I should be trusted with the, you know, all powerful.

• 28:59John Coogan?

  We're gonna be in the Terminator situation, situation, no matter what. Do you want me in charge of the Terminators? Not some other guy, not some nonprofit, not some, not some shareholders.

• 29:09Jordi Hays?

  He is, he is, he's basically making, he's, he's, he's pivoting Tesla production to, uh, Terminators to Terminators, basically.

• 29:17John Coogan?

  Optimist. Yeah.

• 29:19Mike Isaac?

  Great. No, I, I, and like, can I just make one last point is that I just think he, he misunderstood the Terminator because like, we still survive and we fight back in that world. Do you, do you remember?

• 29:32John Coogan?

  I've been saying this. People haven't seen the movie. Jordy actually hasn't seen the Terminator, but in all of these-

• 29:37Mike Isaac?

  Are you kidding me, dude? Yeah.

• 29:38Jordi Hays?

  I've seen five movies.

• 29:39John Coogan?

  In, in, in all of these movies, like it completely leaves out that there is a problem and then humanity overcomes it. And so it's like, if there is a Terminator scenario, like I just want to know that you're on my side as the resistance fighting back and like,

• 29:54Mike Isaac?

  Who is the John Connor here? You are John Connor.

• 29:57John Coogan?

  Hopefully, I mean, I, I would, yeah, it's, I don't know. I don't want to get into the, the, the full Utuski thing, but like, like it is reasonable to be, to, to, to, to sort of steel man that like, if it is bad, right now it's not, it's sass.

• 30:11Jordi Hays?

  Chat says I have to watch Terminator. I've got to watch Terminator tonight.

• 30:14John Coogan?

  You gotta watch Terminator.

• 30:15Mike Isaac?

  Okay. So literally, I just saw this on Twitter. Terminator two is coming back into IMAX pretty soon. Like you can go see it in the theater. So you have to go see it, Jordy. Like it's, it's required viewing.

• 30:26Jordi Hays?

  Let's go together.

• 30:26John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 30:27Mike Isaac?

  I'm down, I'm down.

• 30:28Jordi Hays?

  Do you, do you have any, I would say that so far the trial is less, I mean, it's hard for the trial to go very viral because there's no audio, video, and it's just like live blogging. And you could imagine, you can imagine some of these scenes, like just the stuff that you're typing. I'm like, if that was on video, that gets like 50 million views in like, you know, in a few hours on, on, on X, you know, across a bunch of these different aggregator accounts.

• 30:57Jordi Hays?

  But part is, is maybe part of the, like, my, my feeling is like, it's just so, it's just so like, I feel like the entire tech industry is like, it's just kind of depressing to see, to see these groups like fighting in this way. When we have so much bigger prob, like we have so many bigger problems as an industry, right? The big problem being like, public perception of AI is like already so bad. Like people, you know, don't, don't like, you know,

• 31:26John Coogan?

  Hmm. Yeah, I, I saw some protest signs that were like, No matter who wins, we all lose or something like that. Like there's some very negative stuff.

• 31:36Mike Isaac?

  I mean, that, so I, I totally agree. And I do think actually, Everyone, not everyone, but like many in the AI industry have started realizing, oh, we have, like, not everyone loves us. Like, this is a perception problem in a lot of ways, which, like, to me is funny because, like, I, I, not that I'm smart, but I feel like I've known that for a little while. And, but it's, the, the, the issue is, the, the industry is coming around to that, or at least certain folks are, and know that they want to change that perception. But this case has been in the system for, like, three, years now, and sort of, like, actually happening at a time where they wouldn't want it to necessarily happen if they're trying to change it.

• 32:17Mike Isaac?

  So the timing just sucks, honestly, for, for folks who don't like that, if that makes sense.

• 32:22John Coogan?

  Yeah, there's so many different, like, little tidbits, and I don't know if they're gonna be exact quotes, but you can just imagine plenty of things that are gonna happen on the stand, winding up on a Bernie Sanders postcard, and being like, stop it, pause AI, right? Because, like, you know, it's always, like, give the tech people enough rope to hang themselves, and like, there's a lot of rope going out the next couple of weeks.

• 32:41Mike Isaac?

  Oh, my God. It's totally, you gotta, one of y'all, both of y'all should just show up to the courtroom at some point, and, like, experience it, because, I mean, you have an actual day job, but it's, like, literally, it's really interesting and, like, an experience.

• 32:56John Coogan?

  So you, you can't record video, you can't record audio, but is there a world where you have, like, five of your own stenographers there, taking a perfect transcript? Would that be possible with enough resources?

• 33:10Jordi Hays?

  And then we could do a table reading on the show.

• 33:12John Coogan?

  That's what I'm thinking, is that, is that you could use voice cloning? I don't know if you noticed this, Tyler, what was it, Grok launched voice cloning today, or something? Which is, why is that controversial, again?

• 33:23Jordi Hays?

  Well, for like, I mean, we, we've had this technology for, like, five years, and then no one released it, because, like, you don't want people to make deep fakes of other people's voices.

• 33:29John Coogan?

  Okay, yeah, because it's like textbook, like, I could-

• 33:31Jordi Hays?

  It's like, oh, I load your voice. I call you, John, I need, I need, I need, like, I need 500 bucks, like, can you just give me your credit card?

• 33:39John Coogan?

  Yeah, so, obviously, there's a bunch of risky uses of that. The good use is the comedic table read in the voice of Sam Altman, in the voice of Greg Brockman, in the voice of Elon Musk, that we can all enjoy.

• 33:51Jordi Hays?

  I was thinking more of like doing like end of the day.

• 33:55John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 33:55Jordi Hays?

  There's like, we do a play here.

• 33:57John Coogan?

  Yeah, that's probably best.

• 33:58Jordi Hays?

  A bunch of different actors.

• 34:00John Coogan?

  Full makeup, full costume.

• 34:02Mike Isaac?

  So, you know, there are transcription services and even like.

• 34:06Jordi Hays?

  You could do, you could be Mike Isaac by.

• 34:09John Coogan?

  Oh, yeah, we need someone playing you for sure.

• 34:11Jordi Hays?

  No, no. No, it's like, it's a cameo. He's playing himself.

• 34:15John Coogan?

  Okay, nah. I think you gotta go full Nathan Fielder.

• 34:18Jordi Hays?

  And the whole, the whole time just crashing out like, I forgot my lunch. I forgot to fill up my water.

• 34:25John Coogan?

  I had a banana. I'm good. I had a banana.

• 34:28Mike Isaac?

  Oh, my God. Okay, can I just say, there is an attorney there that looks exactly like Nathan Fielder that I'm like, almost like.

• 34:34Jordi Hays?

  Are you sure?

• 34:35John Coogan?

  Oh, just looks like Nathan Fielder. Okay.

• 34:38Mike Isaac?

  I, every time I see him, I'm like, is this like a bit like I'm, am I going to be on TV in some way? It's very intense. I'm gonna ask him next year.

• 34:46John Coogan?

  I mean, Elon Musk is the funniest outcome is the most likely, and that might be.

• 34:49Mike Isaac?

  Yeah, seriously.

• 34:51John Coogan?

  I, what is the, what is the funniest outcome? The funniest outcome is like Elon wins and the penalty is like, is like 50 bucks or something.

• 34:58Mike Isaac?

  Yeah.

• 34:58John Coogan?

  Like that, it's like, it's like Elon, like, you win, here's, here's a hundred and fifty dollars. Enjoy.

• 35:06Mike Isaac?

  Oh, my God.

• 35:07John Coogan?

  Just the most like inconsequential fine for the AI industry, which is flush with cash at all times.

• 35:12Jordi Hays?

  Well, I find that like, fine, like there's so many, any time a company in tech gets, that gets fined, or not every time, but often it's like.

• 35:21John Coogan?

  Sometimes it's a fine for ants.

• 35:23Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, like they, they, they did something that was bad. They generated a hundred million of revenue and the fine is like 1.5 million dollars.

• 35:31John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 35:31Jordi Hays?

  It's like, did that.

• 35:33John Coogan?

  I think the current Meta YouTube lawsuit was like, uh, maybe a 10 million dollar settlement. Of course, there was like Oh, wow. knock on of a potential for class hacking.

• 35:41Jordi Hays?

  Well, yeah, that, that was for one, that was for one individual.

• 35:43John Coogan?

  That was one individual, but still it was like, you, you, you have this like landmark case, this big build, and then you're like, oh, how, how, how, how damaging is it gonna be? It's gonna be like five minutes of revenue.

• 35:54Mike Isaac?

  But the stock actually in meta earnings as far, I mean, there was a lot of shit that took the stock down. But like, I think one of them was them saying like, this might have a material impact on like these cases. Like may have a material impact in the future if it opens the door. So like, yeah, I agree. Like it's always remedies are always like, it can be existential from a financial point of view, but also just from a guess what? This is about to become your whole fucking life for the next 10 years or whatever. If that makes sense.

• 36:21John Coogan?

  Yeah. Yeah. We talked to a, a, a law professor who, uh, said like, the question is, does social media exist in the future? Like this is an existential moment. I'm not sure that we're quite there, but, uh, it is, it is, there is definitely a risk and you need to consider that if you're an investor.

• 36:37Mike Isaac?

  Totally.

• 36:38John Coogan?

  Anyway, uh, what's the game plan for next week? What's going in? Are you doing trail mix? So you're doing protein bars? I want you fueled up, ready to go.

• 36:50Jordi Hays?

  You should be able to do like a sponsored Camelback, you know?

• 36:56Mike Isaac?

  Did you ever watch jury dude, the show jury?

• 36:58John Coogan?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course.

• 36:59Mike Isaac?

  I, I want to be the guy with like the chair pants and the like, the water thing attached to my back. And like, I need, I'm gotta, this is blogging. This is back in my blogging, all things digital blog days, man. This is, this is it. So I will be more prepared.

• 37:16John Coogan?

  This weekend, you should go sit in a chair for eight hours straight.

• 37:21Jordi Hays?

  Are you gonna do all four days? Are you doing all four days?

• 37:24Mike Isaac?

  I think we're gonna switch off a little more. I, I apologize. I will not be my like disastrous falling apart self every day of the week. Just maybe two days of the week. So, uh, Kate, you should follow Cade Metz, my other colleague who's there. Um, although he, he is much more put together and does not tweet like a person off their meds like I do. So, uh, it'll be a different vibe each day, but I, I will be there next week.

• 37:47John Coogan?

  It, it, last question, is this book material? Is it, does it rise to that quality, this drama? I feel like, someone's got to write a book.

• 37:55Jordi Hays?

  I would, I would write a book on your coverage of this trial.

• 37:58John Coogan?

  Yes, that's what I want to read. The Mike Guy's story.

• 38:03Jordi Hays?

  And then I would do a podcast about it, I would do a podcast about it and then someone would make a book about the podcast, about the book.

• 38:09John Coogan?

  Yes, yes.

• 38:09Jordi Hays?

  Covering, Mike Guy's covering.

• 38:12John Coogan?

  We'll create a content Ouroboros here. Just keep it going. Someday, I don't know, we'll see. Anyway, thank you so much for taking the time to come to us.

• 38:20Jordi Hays?

  Great to catch up, good to see you, Mike.

• 38:20John Coogan?

  Thank you, good to see you.

• 38:21Jordi Hays?

  Thanks for the update.

• 38:22John Coogan?

  We'll talk to you soon. Thanks guys, I'll see you soon. Goodbye.