Why Elon Musk is paying AI expert Stuart Russell over 4 lakh per hour to testify against Sam Altman?

AI expert Stuart Russell is earning $5,000 (Rs 4.1 lakh per hour) for testifying in the Musk vs Altman trial, where he highlighted both the risks and benefits of AI in court.

In Short

• Stuart Russell testifies as Musk’s expert on AI risks
• High hourly fees and total payout draw attention
• Judge limits discussion on existential AI threats in court

The fifth day of the trial in Elon Musk’s case against Sam Altman started with the testimony of Stuart Russell, an artificial intelligence expert who teaches computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. The most memorable part of Russell's testimony was about how much Musk's legal team paid him. While Russell is not directly linked to the case, Elon Musk and his team have presented him as an expert witness to offer background on AI and build on Musk's claim that humanity faces an existential threat from AI, and that they are trying to protect it from what OpenAI could create.

Russell is paid $5,000 per hour (approx. Rs 4.1 lakh) for 40 hours of preparation and $1,500 per hour (approx. Rs 1.25 lakh) after that. Expert witnesses in high-profile cases usually earn between $500 and $1,000 per hour (approx. Rs 41,000 to Rs 83,000). Russell said he will make about $235,000 in total from this trial (approx. Rs 1.95 crore), which is around 20 per cent of his income this year.

He said he is being paid by Excession, which is Musk's family office.

Russell told jurors and Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers about AI’s benefits and then went on to outline AI risks, including widespread algorithmic discrimination, reinforcement of false beliefs, and large-scale job loss.

However, Russell’s broader concerns about the existential risks of unchecked AI were not discussed in court after OpenAI’s lawyers objected, leading the judge to limit Russell’s testimony.

Courtroom pushback on AI threat debate

On the fourth day of the trial, the judge told Musk’s lawyer that she did not want to discuss AI’s existential threat to humanity. But when Musk’s lawyer, Steven Molo, argued with OpenAI’s lawyer over the issue, the judge cut in, saying they should stop arguing about unimportant things.

Meanwhile, there is confusion around how Russell’s testimony actually helps Musk’s case. Some observers say it’s hard to see what it adds, with the arguments feeling broad and disconnected—almost as if it’s just stretching time in court, possibly leaving OpenAI with less room to respond.

Russell’s earlier warnings

Previously, Stuart Russell has warned that artificial intelligence systems are already acting on their own and pointed to a case where an AI smeared a software developer in apparent revenge.

He also signed an open letter in March 2023 calling for a six-month pause in AI research. In a sign of the contradictions here, Musk also signed the same letter, even as he was launching xAI, his own for-profit AI lab.

Russell has long been a critic of the arms-race dynamic created by frontier labs around the globe competing to reach AGI first and has called for governments to regulate the field more tightly.

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