Shivon Zilis Claims Musk Offered Altman Tesla Board Seat

The high-stakes trial stemming from Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is poised to conclude its second week of proceedings this Thursday. Musk’s legal team has been meticulously building its case, calling a roster of key witnesses to the stand, including OpenAI President Greg Brockman and Shivon Zilis, who holds a significant position as both a former board member and someone with a deep personal and professional connection to Musk.

The testimony of Zilis on Wednesday provided a crucial window into the early discussions surrounding OpenAI’s corporate evolution. Under questioning from attorneys representing both Musk and OpenAI, Zilis detailed conversations that took place around 2017 and 2018 concerning the AI company’s foundational structure. These discussions, she indicated, were extensive and often contentious, reflecting the fundamental disagreements that ultimately led to the current legal battle.

Musk initiated the lawsuit in 2024, alleging that OpenAI, led by Altman and Brockman, had reneged on its founding principles. Specifically, Musk contends that the organization failed to uphold its commitment to remaining a non-profit entity and to adhere to its original charitable mission. Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI alongside Altman and Brockman in 2015, has been a vocal critic of the company’s shift towards a more commercialized structure.

The crux of Musk’s grievance lies in OpenAI’s establishment of a for-profit subsidiary after his departure from the company in 2018. This commercial arm has become the central battleground in the lawsuit, with Musk arguing that its existence fundamentally contradicts the organization’s initial charter.

During her testimony, Zilis characterized her primary role at OpenAI as that of a crucial liaison. She described herself as the connecting point between Musk, Altman, Brockman, and Ilya Sutskever, another co-founder who played a pivotal role in the company’s early development. This intermediary position allowed Zilis to observe and participate in the intense debates over OpenAI’s strategic direction.

Zilis testified that the four key executives engaged in exhaustive discussions about OpenAI’s corporate structure, exploring numerous potential for-profit models. At one particularly pivotal moment during these negotiations, Zilis revealed that Musk had proposed integrating OpenAI into his electric vehicle giant, Tesla. This proposal included offering Altman a seat on Tesla’s board, highlighting the ambitious scope of Musk’s vision for a potential synergy between the two organizations.

“There were lots and lots of arguments about all of the different possible structures put in place at that time,” Zilis stated, underscoring the highly contested nature of these formative decisions.

Musk, who provided his own testimony earlier in the trial, expressed that his opposition to OpenAI’s for-profit ventures was not absolute. However, he articulated that these commercial endeavors had become “the tail wagging the dog,” implying a loss of control over the company’s core mission. He has repeatedly accused Altman and Brockman of attempting to “steal a charity,” a strong indictment of their motives and actions.

Further complicating the narrative, Musk himself reportedly explored the creation of an AI lab within Tesla that would directly compete with OpenAI. However, Zilis testified that this initiative never moved beyond the conceptual stage. This suggests a period of strategic maneuvering and internal competition within Musk’s own ventures, adding another layer of complexity to his relationship with OpenAI.

The establishment of xAI in 2023, Musk’s own competing artificial intelligence company, and its subsequent merger with his space exploration venture, SpaceX, earlier this year, further underscore the dynamic landscape of AI development and the intense competition for talent and resources.

Zilis’s career trajectory, which has spanned across several of Musk’s high-profile companies including Tesla and his neurotechnology startup Neuralink, positioned her uniquely to observe the unfolding events at OpenAI. She began her involvement with OpenAI as an informal advisor in 2016, a role through which she first connected with Musk.

She served on OpenAI’s board from 2020 to 2023, a period that commenced after Musk had already departed the organization. It was during this tenure that Zilis and Musk had several children together. She testified that the existence of these children was initially kept private, a decision driven by a mutual agreement for “complete confidentiality.” This was partly to shield the children from the heightened security risks associated with being publicly linked to a figure as prominent and often controversial as Musk.

Zilis recounted that she eventually felt compelled to inform Altman about Musk’s paternity when she learned that their connection was about to be disclosed in the press. OpenAI’s internal policies permitted Zilis to retain her board seat during this period. Ultimately, she resigned from the board in 2023, coinciding with Musk’s decision to launch xAI, marking a definitive separation from his prior involvement with the organization.