OpenAI President Greg Brockman never intended to discuss his personal journal publicly. Yet, for days, he has been compelled to do precisely that while testifying in a trial where Elon Musk alleges OpenAI abandoned its non-profit mission to instead focus on personally enriching leaders like Brockman and Sam Altman.
"It's very painful," Brockman stated to OpenAI lawyer Sarah Eddy on his second day testifying.
While not "ashamed" of any entries, Brockman considers them profoundly personal. He explained they are not a straightforward log of actions or feelings, but rather a stream of consciousness exploring alternate viewpoints, often meandering in its reflection.
Brockman clarified that he sometimes jotted down notes reflecting other people's thoughts to internalize them. This practice, he testified, can make his entries appear self-contradictory at times.
He also noted that he occasionally recorded text or Signal messages from others to capture and ponder their ideas, which he believes complicates parsing his entries out of context.
Brockman estimated his journal contains approximately 100 pages of entries. He began writing it in school and continued using it to reflect on significant professional decisions, he testified.
He stated the journal was never intended for anyone but himself. However, its privacy ended when entries were revealed in court filings this January. OpenAI had submitted the journals as evidence last October, initially sealed and then unsealed in January. Musk's legal team alleges these entries pinpoint the moment OpenAI leaders decided to abandon their non-profit mission, with Brockman explicitly discussing "stealing a charity" from Musk and aiming to earn a billion dollars for his OpenAI contributions.
Ultimately, the OpenAI president was compelled to read some of the most embarrassing entries aloud before a jury, a packed courthouse, and a YouTube livestream that peaked at approximately 1,200 viewers.
The entries cited during the trial span from 2015, when OpenAI was founded, to 2023, the year Brockman and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman were briefly ousted as leaders due to alleged safety concerns by the OpenAI board.
Musk aims for these diary entries to characterize Brockman as a money-driven executive who, from early on, showed little regard for OpenAI's foundational mission.