Former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever provided testimony in Elon Musk's legal action against OpenAI. He devoted roughly a year to gathering evidence for the board, aiming to demonstrate that CEO Sam Altman exhibited a "persistent pattern of dishonesty" and that he had been contemplating Altman's dismissal for no less than a year. At the board's behest, Sutskever assembled a 52-page document chronicling Altman's deceitful actions, such as undermining the authority of senior executives and stirring up discord among them. He had also engaged in discussions with Mira Murati regarding Altman's removal, convinced that Altman's conduct was detrimental to the pursuit of creating safe general-purpose artificial intelligence. In November 2023, Altman was swiftly reinstated following his dismissal. Initially, Sutskever played a role in planning Altman's ousting, but he later had second thoughts and backed Altman's reinstatement. He disclosed that as of November 2025, the worth of his shares in OpenAI had surged from approximately $5 billion to around $7 billion. Sutskever also verified that after Altman's dismissal, the remaining board members had deliberated on a potential merger with Anthropic, though he lacked enthusiasm for the idea. During the weekend subsequent to the board's decision to fire Altman, he stayed off the grid and was initially oblivious to Microsoft's contingency strategy. In 2024, Sutskever departed from OpenAI and established an AI startup.