Musk Offered OpenAI CEO Position to Tesla Board in 2017, Zilis Testifies

Testimony in Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI continued this week in federal court in Oakland, California. Shivon Zilis, who served on OpenAI's board from 2020 to 2023, told attorneys that discussions about the company's corporate structure occurred repeatedly in 2017 and 2018.

According to her testimony, Musk wanted OpenAI to join Tesla and offered its CEO Sam Altman a seat on the electric vehicle maker's board. Zilis said her primary role at OpenAI was acting as a liaison among Musk, CEO Sam Altman, president Greg Brockman and co-founder Ilya Sutskever.

" "There were lots and lots of arguments about all of the different possible structures put in place at that time," Zilis said.

Messages reviewed in court showed discussions in 2017 about starting a rival AI laboratory that could have been led by OpenAI's CEO or the chief executive of another prominent AI lab. Zilis testified that Musk also considered creating an AI lab inside Tesla but that the plan never materialized.

Musk left OpenAI in 2018. OpenAI later established a for-profit subsidiary. Musk's 2024 lawsuit alleges that OpenAI's leaders broke a founding promise to keep the organization a nonprofit dedicated to its charitable mission and seeks to undo the for-profit restructuring, remove Altman and Brockman, and obtain $134 billion in damages to be redirected to the nonprofit arm.

Zilis began working with OpenAI as an informal adviser in 2016. She joined the board after Musk had departed and remained until 2023. During that period she had four children with Musk. She testified the relationship was initially kept confidential to protect the children from security risks associated with him.

She eventually informed OpenAI's CEO of the paternity when it became clear the information would appear in the press. OpenAI permitted Zilis to retain her board seat despite the relationship. She resigned in 2023 after Musk decided to launch a competing artificial intelligence company.

That venture, xAI, launched in 2023 and was later merged with his rocket company earlier this year.

Court filings have described Zilis as having acted as an inside source for Musk while she served on OpenAI's board. Lawyers for both sides questioned her about whether she shared information with Musk during her board tenure. The testimony added new details to the historical record of negotiations that occurred before Musk's departure from OpenAI in 2018.

The trial is scheduled to conclude its second week of proceedings on Thursday. Additional executives, including OpenAI's CEO and the CEO of Microsoft, could still be called to testify.