Musk v. Altman: OpenAI lawyers claim Shivon Zilis, a longtime Musk employee and mother to four of his children, acted as a covert liaison between him and OpenAI

Wired 2026-05-01

Context & Ripple Effects

The case record described in related coverage has moved from Musk’s 2017 efforts to secure control and funding leverage at OpenAI to trial testimony about the company’s governance and founding relationships. Zilis later testified that her relationship with Musk did not affect her OpenAI board work and that she departed in 2023 after Musk began xAI.

The liaison allegation therefore matters less as a standalone personal claim than as another contested account of whether personal and competitive ties shaped OpenAI’s internal decision-making.

First-order effects

OpenAI’s lawyers gain a further line of argument tying Musk’s relationship with Zilis to communications with the organization, while Zilis’s board role receives heightened scrutiny in the litigation.
Musk, Zilis, and OpenAI must reconcile the allegation with the later testimony denying that the relationship influenced her board duties.

Second-order effects

The dispute broadens the evidentiary focus beyond formal funding and control negotiations to informal channels and potential conflicts around AI-lab governance.
Because Zilis left after Musk started xAI, the case can sharpen attention on how personnel and governance ties are managed when founders or former backers become direct AI competitors.

Third-order effects

If comparable disputes recur, leading AI labs may face greater pressure to document conflicts, board independence, and communications involving investors, founders, and employees with overlapping affiliations.
The broader risk is reputational as well as legal: governance controversies can become part of the competitive contest over an AI lab’s legitimacy, even when the underlying claims remain contested.

The trend: AI competition is turning historic founder relationships and governance records into litigation and legitimacy battlegrounds as former allies become rival lab builders.

Discussion

@mikeisaac Rat King on x
i am getting a lot of questions about this so i just want to make clear that it was a brief exchange and OAI's lawyer did not seem to want to pursue it further after musk affirmed the practice. (musk also noted that it was a common practice among the labs)
@wongmjane Jane Manchun Wong on x
Last week: White House condemns Chinese AI labs for alleged distillation attack This week: Elon admits under oath that xAI distilled OpenAI models to train its models 🫣 [image]
@zeffmax Max Zeff on x
Musk doubled down that everyone is doing this. He also said it's standard practice for AI labs to use other AI models to validate their own, which seemed more known. https://www.wired.com/...
@zeffmax Max Zeff on x
Elon's lawsuit against OpenAI is really not about Grok. But a line of questioning this morning veered into how xAI trains its AI models, potentially using their competitor's technology: Lawyer: Do you know what distillation is? Musk: It means to use one AI model to train another …
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
it is quite significant that Musk admitted on the stand that xAI is distilling OpenAI models to train xAI, and that it is using OpenAI's technology to build xAI!
@clementdelangue Clem on x
What people call “distillation” is a super common practice (you use other models to benchmark your model, to evaluate your inputs or to add a little bit to your datasets) that in my opinion should be covered by fair use (just like using public data is), especially when the result…
@kelseytuoc Kelsey Piper on x
I think OpenAI did basically betray its commitments to its early investors but it's so absurd to have Musk being the one suing when he 1) didn't seem to care until it affected him personally and 2) is now running a fully for-profit competitor.
@alexeheath Alex Heath on x
wild thing to say under oath
@mtslive @mtslive on x
LIVE TRIAL UPDATE: OpenAI's counsel asked Musk whether xAI has ever “distilled” technology from OpenAI. Musk: “Generally AI companies distill other AI companies.” “Is that a yes?” Savitt asked. Musk: “Partly.”
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
Musk also affirms xAI has used OpenAI technology to improve xAI. wowie woo
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
Musk says it's “partly” true that xAI has distilled OpenAI models to train xAI.
r/singularity r on reddit
Elon Musk confirms xAI “partly” distilled OpenAI's models to train Grok
@hadas_gold Hadas Gold on x
Judge cont: “I suspect there are plenty of people who dont want to out the future of humanity in Mr. Musk's hands, but it doesn't matter, we aren't going to get into those issues. We're just not going to do it, and ultimately, it's an advisory opinion. ....This is not a trial on
@hadas_gold Hadas Gold on x
Intense argument right now between the attorneys (no jury yet) about whether an expert will discuss AI safety risks “WE ALL COULD DIE” Musk's attorney says. Judge isn't having it: “I said stop! ... It is also ironic that your client, despite these risks is creating a company that
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
judge Gonzalez: “I suspect that there are a number of people who do not want to put the future of humanity in Mr. Musk's hands. But we're not going to get into that. This is not a trial on the safety risks of artificial intelligence.”
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
lmao — OpenAI's lawyer piped up and both him and Musk's counsel started raising their voices until the judge said they all need to shut up nothing like being dressed down as an adult
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
i am not really sure how often lawyers try to endear themselves to judges but Musk's lawyer, Steven Molo, does not seem to be trying to do that right now he's trying to get “extinction risk” discussion into the court discussion. “This is a real risk. we all could die.”

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