OpenAI trial: Mother of Musk's children says he offered Altman a Tesla board seat

The high-profile legal proceedings in Elon Musk's lawsuit against Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, are entering their second week. Musk's legal team has presented several key witnesses, including OpenAI President Greg Brockman and Shivon Zilis, who has both personal ties to Musk and experience on the startup's board. Additional testimonies from Altman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella may still be anticipated. During her testimony, Zilis, who shares four children with Musk, discussed her involvement with OpenAI around 2017 and 2018. She was questioned about conversations concerning the company's corporate structure. Musk's lawsuit, initiated in 2024, claims that OpenAI, Altman, and Brockman reneged on their commitments to maintain the organization as a nonprofit dedicated to charitable purposes. Musk was a co-founder of OpenAI alongside Altman and Brockman in 2015, but after leaving the company in 2018, he alleges that the establishment of a for-profit subsidiary strayed from their original mission. Zilis explained that her main role at OpenAI was to facilitate communication between Musk, Altman, Brockman, and Ilya Sutskever, another co-founder. She recounted extensive discussions among the executives regarding OpenAI's potential corporate structures, including various for-profit models. At one point, Musk proposed that OpenAI merge with Tesla, even offering Altman a board seat at the electric vehicle company. Musk, who has previously testified, expressed that while he had reservations about OpenAI's for-profit division, he felt it was becoming overly dominant in decision-making. He accused Altman and Brockman of attempting to misappropriate a charitable organization. The Tesla CEO also contemplated the idea of establishing a competing AI lab within his own company, although Zilis confirmed that this never came to fruition. In 2023, Musk launched a rival AI venture called xAI, which was integrated with SpaceX earlier this year. Zilis, who has collaborated with Musk across various ventures, including Tesla and Neuralink, noted that she first became an informal advisor to OpenAI in 2016, leading to her eventual board membership from 2020 to 2023, after Musk's departure. Their children were born during this time, and Zilis highlighted the importance of confidentiality surrounding Musk's fatherhood to safeguard their privacy. She eventually informed Altman of Musk's role as their father when the information was about to become public. OpenAI permitted Zilis to retain her board position until her resignation in 2023, coinciding with Musk's decision to create xAI. This ongoing trial continues to shed light on the complex dynamics and decisions made within OpenAI's foundational years.