Shivon Zilis testifies in OpenAI trial: Why she matters in Musk's lawsuit against Altman — her relation with Tesla CEO?

Shivon Zilis, a top executive at Neuralink and the mother of four children with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, appeared in court on Wednesday as one of the key witnesses in Musk’s legal battle against OpenAI, The Guardian reported. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has claimed that during her time at the company from 2016 to 2023, Zilis was secretly in a relationship with Musk and allegedly served as a source of information for him.

Elon Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI, is seeking $150 billion in damages from OpenAI and investor Microsoft, with the amount intended to support the startup’s charitable arm.

In the ongoing lawsuit, a former senior technology executive at OpenAI testified on Wednesday that CEO Sam Altman created mistrust among top executives as the company moved ahead with developing and widely deploying its advanced artificial intelligence technology, Reuters reported.

“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 her and others, according to a report by Reuters.

Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in 2024, alleging that the company had wrongly shifted into a for-profit business, moved away from its original charitable mission, and should return to operating as a nonprofit organization.

If Musk succeeds in the case, it could also weaken the commercial growth of a rival to his own AI venture, xAI, which is now part of SpaceX.

Shivon Zilis and her relation with Elon Musk -Why she matters?

Shivon Zilis has emerged as a key figure in the case because she acted as a connection between Elon Musk and OpenAI’s board, where she served from 2020 to 2023, as reported by The Guardian.

In pre-trial filings, OpenAI’s lawyers raised questions about the nature of Zilis’s relationship with Musk and cited communications they claim suggest she acted as an internal source of information for him after he departed the company. Zilis first met Musk through her work at OpenAI, the report stated.

According to court filings, cited by The Guardian, Zilis texted Musk in 2018, “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.”

“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,” Musk responded, according to a report by The Guardian.

According to a report by The Guardian, when Musk left OpenAI’s board in February 2018, Zilis said, “They were kind of bad at speaking to each other.”

She added, “My role historically had been to facilitate communication between all of the major parties to make a maximal alignment between them.”

Zilis also testified that Sam Altman later invited her to join the board in 2020, and she accepted because she had “spent the last decade of my life wanting AI to go well for humanity.” When asked whether she funnelled information to Musk while serving on the board, she firmly denied it, responding, “Funnel? Certainly not.”

Musk has four children with Shivon — twins Strider and Azure, a daughter Arcadia and a son Seldon Lycurgus. Seldon, Musk's 13th child, was born in March, 2025.

During his testimony last week, Elon Musk described Shivon Zilis as the mother of his children and said they live together. The pair have also recently been spotted holding hands and appearing together at events, including dinners with US President Donald Trump at the White House and Mar-a-Lago.

Concern about ChatGPT release

Shivon Zilis noted that there was internal unrest as the company prepared for the major launch of the ChatGPT chatbot, Reuters reported.

She said the board “voiced extreme concern” about releasing ChatGPT “without any semblance of board communication.”

Asked whether she raised concerns about Altman internally, Zilis said “there had been a couple of instances.”

Testimony from Elon Musk, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, and others has outlined internal disagreements among senior leaders and founders over how the company should grow and operate, including whether Musk, whose early funding was key to the startup’s launch, should take on the role of CEO, a Reuters report noted.

The proceedings have also revealed unexpected details, including that Musk reportedly tried to reach a settlement with Brockman shortly before the trial began, and at one point felt “like a fool” for continuing to financially support OpenAI.

(With inputs from agencies)