Key Takeaways
A former OpenAI board member and romantic partner of Elon Musk testified Wednesday that Musk advocated for OpenAI to be absorbed by Tesla Inc., adding a new layer to the $180 billion legal battle over the artificial intelligence lab’s soul and corporate structure.
"I had an allegiance to the best outcome of AI for humanity," Shivon Zilis said during testimony in a California federal court, pushing back against accusations from OpenAI’s lawyers that she acted as a proxy for Musk and funneled him information while serving on the board.
The testimony is a pivotal moment in Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI and its co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. Musk, who provided $38 million in initial funding, alleges he was manipulated into backing a nonprofit that later transformed into a for-profit venture. He is asking the court to force OpenAI to revert to its nonprofit structure and seeks up to $180 billion in damages. Zilis testified that Altman, Brockman, and co-founder Ilya Sutskever declined the plan to join Tesla.
At stake is the future of the world's most valuable AI company. A judgment in Musk's favor could unwind OpenAI's leadership and its capped-profit structure, a move that would send shockwaves through the AI industry and jeopardize key partnerships, including its multi-billion dollar relationship with Microsoft Corp.
Evidence presented in court revealed new details about the extent of Musk’s plans to bring OpenAI's talent into his own orbit. An internal Tesla FAQ drafted in late 2017 outlined a strategy to create a "world leading AI lab" to rival Google's DeepMind. The document listed Altman's name next to Musk's with two question marks, and a note suggested that having Altman moderate a Tesla AI event "could be a forcing function for Sam to commit to TeslaAI.”
In an October 2017 email, Zilis wrote that OpenAI’s co-founders had not “internalized the advantages of burying this in Tesla for stealth advantage.” When questioned by OpenAI lawyers whether "burying" meant making the AI research closed-source, Zilis denied it, stating it was merely a "small fish in a big pond."
Zilis’s close relationship with Musk was a central theme. She worked for his companies Tesla and Neuralink while also serving as an OpenAI board member from 2020 to 2023. During this time, she had children with Musk via in vitro fertilization, a fact she initially kept from the board, citing privacy and security concerns for her children.
She resigned from the board in February 2023 after learning Musk was launching his own competitor, xAI. In a text message revealed in court, Zilis told a friend, “When the father of your babies starts a competitive effort and will recruit out of openai there is nothing to be done.”
The trial has been marked by dramatic and personal testimony. Last week, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman told jurors he feared Musk was going to physically strike him during a tense 2017 meeting. The proceedings have been tightly controlled by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who has admonished Musk for his public comments about the case on his social media platform, X.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
