The Elon Musk vs. Sam Altman lawsuit entered its second week this week, with Musk's close ally Shivon Zilis taking the stand. Zilis, the mother of four of Musk's children, worked simultaneously for OpenAI and for Musk's Tesla and Neuralink starting in 2016. Her extensive email history was displayed in court, much of it unfavorable to Musk.
Zilis confirmed that in late 2017, Musk considered offering Altman a seat on Tesla's board as part of a plan to merge OpenAI into Tesla. Outside the courtroom, OpenAI lawyer William Savitt stated there is documentary evidence that this was a "sweetheart deal to absorb OpenAI," and "when it didn't work, he walked away." Zilis's own emails were more blunt: "Tesla solves the funding issue immediately... Tesla at least has option to bury," suggesting that hiding AI research inside Tesla would provide a "stealth advantage." She also outlined multiple scenarios for Musk, three of which involved developing AGI (artificial general intelligence) inside Tesla, including one where OpenAI becomes a subsidiary of Tesla's public benefit corporation. Another bolder path: poaching DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis, reasoning that "he's not immoral, just amoral, and maybe hanging around Musk will make him think more about humanity."
In an email to Musk's money manager Jared Birchall, Zilis acknowledged that Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever would never let anyone have total control: "You and I can say they're stupid, but they won't budge."
Zilis's conflicts of interest were also laid bare. While serving on OpenAI's board, she secretly gave birth to twins with Musk — even her own father didn't know the father's identity — and only confessed to Altman when she learned Business Insider was about to report it. After Musk left OpenAI's board in 2018, she texted him asking if she should "stay close and friendly, keep information flowing." Musk replied "close and friendly" and asked her to poach three to four people from OpenAI for Tesla. Zilis denied continuing to feed Musk internal OpenAI information after officially joining the board in 2020.
On the prediction market Kalshi, Musk's odds of winning the case have dropped from 60% on opening day to 40%. Closing arguments are expected next Thursday.