Shivon Zilis was an under-the-radar executive at Elon Musk’s companies and an OpenAI board member back in 2022. But she was hiding a major secret – Musk was the father of her twins born the year before.
Now, her ties to the Tesla CEO have put her at the center of a courtroom battle between the world’s richest man and the company credited with kicking off the AI boom.
Zilis’ testimony on Wednesday shed light on the fundamental role she played in the flow of information between Musk and OpenAI during critical time periods. She effectively served as a conduit between Musk and OpenAI’s leaders until Musk started his own AI company in 2023, evidence presented in court this week indicated.
Musk, who co-founded and funded OpenAI, sued the company and its leaders saying they deceived him, breached a charitable trust and unjustly enriched themselves when the company expanded from a nonprofit mission to a profit-oriented structure. Zilis was initially a co-plaintiff in the case, though she dropped off at her request before the trial began.
OpenAI has denied Musk’s claims, saying he at different times pushed to create a for-profit subsidiary. The company also alleges Musk sued the company because he couldn’t gain full control of it, Musk left OpenAI in 2018 and now owns a rival AI company, xAI.
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