Musk v. Altman: Shivon Zilis testifies her relationship with Musk didn't influence her duties as an OpenAI board member; she left in 2023 after Musk started xAI

“When the father of your babies starts a competitive effort and starts recruiting from OpenAI there is nothing to be done,” …

Courthouse News Service 2026-05-07 Carly Nairn

Context & Ripple Effects

The related coverage shows the Musk–Altman dispute becoming a broader examination of OpenAI’s early governance: OpenAI alleges Zilis served as a covert liaison for Musk, while Zilis denies that her personal relationship affected her board role. Separate testimony from Mira Murati has also put internal safety-process disputes into the record.

Zilis’s departure after Musk launched xAI connects the governance dispute to an emerging competitive split between OpenAI and Musk’s newer AI effort. Testimony that Musk sought complete control of a proposed for-profit arm further makes control, independence, and conflicts central themes of the case.

First-order effects

Zilis’s testimony directly contests OpenAI’s characterization of her board service, leaving the court to weigh competing accounts of whether her Musk ties affected her independence.
Her 2023 exit ended one visible overlap between OpenAI’s board and Musk’s orbit as xAI began competing for AI talent and influence.

Second-order effects

The litigation record raises the practical stakes for OpenAI and other AI labs in documenting director independence, conflict disclosures, and recusal practices when founders, employees, or investors have ties to rivals.
Claims about safety-process friction and contested control can make governance credibility part of competitive positioning for both OpenAI and xAI, not merely an internal legal issue.

Third-order effects

If leading AI labs increasingly combine nonprofit or mission-oriented governance with commercial competition, board independence and founder-control disputes are likely to become recurring institutional risks.
The case illustrates a broader separation of once-aligned AI figures into rival organizations, with governance arrangements becoming as strategically consequential as model development and recruiting.

The trend: AI competition is increasingly being shaped by governance separation—who controls labs, sits on their boards, and can move between rival ecosystems—as much as by technical capability.

Discussion

@michelletomkim Michelle Kim on x
In 2016, Shivon Zilis became an informal advisor to OpenAI, then was offered the Chief Operating Officer role, but proposed instead to work 10 free hours a week. In 2017, she worked for Tesla, Neuralink, and OpenAI. In 2020-2023, she was a member of OpenAI's nonprofit board.
@michelletomkim Michelle Kim on x
Shivon Zilis left the OpenAI board in 2023 when Elon Musk founded his own AI company, xAI. “When Elon decides to have a horse in the race,” she says, “it's just black and white. It's time to step down.” She had discussed this scenario—stepping down in the such a
@chrisfralic Chris Fralic on x
Musk's team and Zilis have insisted that Zilis acted independently, despite working for Musk's companies Tesla and Neuralink, and having children with the entrepreneur during her time on the OpenAI board. https://www.wsj.com/...
@michelletomkim Michelle Kim on x
“Close and friendly, but we are going to actively try to move three or four people from OpenAI to Tesla. More than that will join over time, but we won't actively recruit them,” Elon Musk texted Shivon Zilis back. “There may be some competition over talent in the future,” Zilis
@mtslive @mtslive on x
LIVE TRIAL UPDATE: Zilis testifies the entire OpenAI board voiced “extreme concern” that ChatGPT was launched without any prior communication to them.
@mtslive @mtslive on x
LIVE TRIAL UPDATE: Zilis testifies Tesla never had an AGI lab and does not have one today. She confirms Musk recruited Andrej Karpathy from OpenAI, but says his focus at Tesla was Autopilot, not AGI research.
@mtslive @mtslive on x
LIVE TRIAL UPDATE: Zilis testifies that during Sam Altman's firing, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said: “We are above them. We are below them. We are around them.” Zilis: “I just remember that being terrifying. We just fought so hard to put together a structure where the board
@michelletomkim Michelle Kim on x
“Do you prefer I stay close and friendly to OpenAI to keep info flowing or begin to disassociate? Trust game is about to get tricky so any guidance on how to do right by you is appreciated,” Shivon Zilis texted Elon Musk in February 2018, just before Musk left OpenAI's board.
@garymarcus Gary Marcus on x
C'mon BBC. Zilis was sharp as a tack on the stand, on her role in the OpenAI *nonprofit* board, and how she managed conflicts as they began to develop, and this (which is not really even news since it was reported a couple years ago) is the headline. Annoying, sexist, and
@mtslive @mtslive on x
LIVE TRIAL UPDATE: Defense counsel presents texts showing Zilis knew about Musk's xAI venture before Sam Altman called to tell her. Her text to a friend on the same day: “Have to resign OpenAI board BTW. xAI effort has become well known.”
@mtslive @mtslive on x
LIVE TRIAL UPDATE: Documents show that while still on OpenAI's board, Musk asked Andrej Karpathy to compile a list of OpenAI employees to recruit to Tesla. Greg Brockman had no idea. Zilis in texts at the time: “I talked to Greg today and he clearly had no idea.”
@mtslive @mtslive on x
LIVE TRIAL UPDATE: Documents show Musk was planning a world-leading AGI lab inside Tesla in late 2017, with or without the OpenAI team, while still on the OpenAI board. Zilis was organizing a launch event to announce “Tesla is building a world-leading artificial intelligence
r/Fauxmoi r on reddit
Former OpenAI board member says Elon Musk offered her sperm donations
r/UnderReportedNews r on reddit
Former OpenAI board member says Elon Musk offered her sperm donations
r/EnoughMuskSpam r on reddit
Former OpenAI board member says Elon Musk offered her sperm donations
@michelletomkim Michelle Kim on x
“My concern was about Sam saying one thing to one person, and it completed the opposite to another person,” says Murati. Altman also was not “making decisions on big controversial things at all,” she says. This made “a very difficult and chaotic environment” to work in, she
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
murati says the problems she had with altman's management style after he was reinstated still “persisted,” as well as with brockman though to a lesser degree in the latter case
@flowersslop Flowers on x
this is how I imagine couples in SF break up with each other [image]
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
text message thread from then OpenAI CTO mira murati to MSFT ceo Satya Nadella during the weekend Sam Altman was fired fuzzy time of no sleep for everyone involved including myself but my best guess on the thing mira is refusing to put her name on is the memo sent out naming [ima…
@krishnanrohit Rohit on x
This entire exchange makes me think way way better of Sam, as should you
@ashleevance Ashlee Vance on x
@ShakeelHashim Ashlee Vance was trying to break this story Narrator: he broke the story https://x.com/...
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
“OpenAI was at catastrophic risk of falling apart. i was concerned about the company completely blowing up. the funding was the last of my concerns.” — murati on “the blip” of altman's ouster
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
counsel: “by fall of 2023 did you percieve altman was not candid with you? truthful? honest?” murati: (very long pause) “not always” counsel: did he undermine you as CTO? Murati: yes. counsel: did he pit other execs against one another? murati: yes.
@michelletomkim Michelle Kim on x
Mira Murati, former CTO of OpenAI and former senior product manager at Tesla, testifies in video. “I found Elon to be very inspiring leader,” she says, when she joined Tesla. She joined OpenAI in 2018 after chatting with Ilya Sutskever and Greg Brockman. “I found the direction of
@slhamlet Wagner James Au on x
Confirming @RonanFarrow & @andrewmarantz's reporting under oath and threat of perjury prosecution
@chrisjbakke Chris Bakke on x
Emmett Shear reading this: [image]
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
just want to go back to how much intense pushback i got on this story at all levels of the company at the time, and how people speak very differently when under the threat of perjury lot of names etched in my mind w/r/t how certain folks handled this https://www.nytimes.com/...
@garymarcus Gary Marcus on x
How Sam ("You parachute him onto a cannibal island, and he comes back five years later as king") Altman operates:
@piratewires @piratewires on x
Murati: My issues with Sam were very much around management and providing direction to the organization and decision making.
@michelletomkim Michelle Kim on x
Mira Murati says she “heard from [her] team” that Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, and Elon Musk were trying to recruit researchers from OpenAI in November 2023 when Sam Altman was fired as CEO.
@techemails @techemails on x
Sam Altman texts Mira Murati November 19, 2023 [image]
@garymarcus Gary Marcus on x
Mira Murati's testimony is gripping - and what it makes absolutely clear is how utterly wrong most of Twitter was about why Sam was fired. - It had nothing per se to do with AI safety - It had nothing do with anything “Ilya saw” - It was entirely about Sam's lack of trustworthin…
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
per murati's texts: as OpenAI was “imploding,” OAI execs including her were worried Demis Hassabis would go on a recruiting spree and DeepMind would come out on top Musk also constantly worried about Hassabis before he left OAI Key theme: everyone's worried about Demis!
@michelletomkim Michelle Kim on x
When asked if Sam Altman was not candid with her by fall of 2023, Mira Murati takes a long pause, sighs, and says, “Not always.” “I had an incredibly hard job to do in an organization that was very complex, and I was asking Sam to lead and lead with clarity,” she says.
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
counsel asks Zilis “why did you elect for IVF” re: musk's children Zilis said she ended up having some pretty significant health and autoimmune issues...had a few relationships in a row fall apart due to medical circumstances...felt she coudnt promise to be there as a partner
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
mira trashes the board's handling of altman's firing. counsel asks if her views on sam's management has changed since she was asked by the board Mira: “Ive been gone from openai for over a year. up until the moment i left, my views have been consistent.” that's candor!
@cosmos_raj Cosmos Raj on x
Lmaoooo @eshear's new background [image]
@katiemiller Katie Miller on x
“My concern was about Sam saying one thing to one person and completely the opposite to another person,” said Mira Murati, who was briefly CEO of OpenAI after its board temporarily forced out Altman in 2023. She said Altman was “creating chaos” and, at times, was deceptive with […
@shakeelhashim Shakeel on x
Why was Ashlee Vance providing tips to Sam Altman during the board drama?
@essamsleiman Essam Sleiman on x
imagine founding and running Twitch to a ~$1B exit and still getting called “rando twitch guy” [image]
@piratewires @piratewires on x
Murati testified that, by fall 2023, Sam Altman was “not always” candid with her, and undermined her as CTO. She expressed frustration over his need to “lead with clarity.”
@jacquesthibs Jacques on x
I wonder why TBPN isn't covering the OpenAI vs Musk trial
r/fuckelonmusk r on reddit
Former OpenAI board member says Elon Musk offered her sperm donations
r/ElonCriticizesElon r on reddit
Former OpenAI board member says Elon Musk offered her sperm donations
r/shivonzilis r on reddit
Good Zilis Trial Testimony Analysis from The Verge
@caseynewton Casey Newton on bluesky
Every sentence of this @lopatto.bsky.social piece on Shivon Ellis' testimony is a delight, but especially this one www.theverge.com/ai-artificia... [image]
@thedextriarchy Adi Robertson on bluesky
the phenomenon of the Business Tradwife will be studied for decades
@lopatto Elizabeth Lopatto on bluesky
I still have a lot of questions for shivon zilis frankly. main one remains “girl, what the fuck” www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

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