As a civil trial involving Elon Musk and OpenAI proceeds in California, Shivon Zilis has come up in testimony from both sides. She has worked with Musk at his companies and also held a role at OpenAI in its early years.
The lawsuit, filed by Musk in 2024, challenges OpenAI’s transition from a non-profit to a profit-driven structure. He said this change does not match the organisation’s original objective of developing artificial general intelligence for public benefit. Musk is seeking $150 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft. The case is before US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in a federal court in Oakland.
Zilis is part of the proceedings as a witness. She worked at OpenAI as an adviser from 2016 and later served on its non-profit board from 2020 to 2023. During that time, she was also associated with Musk’s companies, including Tesla and Neuralink.
Court documents and testimony refer to her role in communications during the period when OpenAI’s leadership discussed changes to its structure. The court is examining those interactions as part of the case.
How did Shivon Zilis become linked to both camps?
Zilis grew up in Canada and later studied at Yale University, where she balanced academics with college ice hockey. Her early career began at IBM, focusing on emerging areas like cognitive computing. Business Insider reported that she later moved into venture capital at Bloomberg Beta, part of Bloomberg, where she backed startups working in machine learning.
Her career shifted closer to Musk’s ecosystem when she joined Tesla. There, she worked on chip development linked to the company’s self-driving efforts. She later took on a senior operations role at Neuralink, Musk’s brain-interface venture.
Around the same time, she also built connections inside OpenAI. She began as an adviser in 2016 and eventually joined its nonprofit board, serving until 2023. That overlap placed her in regular contact with OpenAI leaders like Sam Altman and Greg Brockman.
Her personal relationship with Musk began during this period. In legal testimony, she said the relationship started in 2016. They have four children together.
What role did Shivon Zilis play during OpenAI split?
From 2017 and 2018, OpenAI’s leadership debated restructuring the organisation. Musk pushed for stronger control over a proposed for-profit arm, according to court filings. Others within OpenAI resisted that idea.
Zilis acted as a go-between during these discussions. Emails shown in court suggest she relayed conversations about equity and governance. In one exchange, she told Musk that OpenAI leaders, including Ilya Sutskever, believed no single person should control AGI. Musk said “This is very annoying. Please encourage them to go start a company. I’ve had enough.”
Musk eventually left OpenAI’s board in 2018 after failing to secure that level of control. Yet communication did not fully stop. Messages presented during the trial show Zilis asking Musk whether she should “stay close and friendly” with OpenAI to keep information flowing. Musk replied that she should remain friendly while also helping recruit talent to Tesla.
Testimony suggests she continued to pass along general updates about OpenAI’s work and fundraising. Musk told the court that she never shared restricted information without approval. Brockman offered a more cautious view, saying she functioned as “a proxy Elon” in many interactions.
In 2023, shortly after Musk acquired Twitter, Altman asked her whether he should publicly praise Musk. He later posted that Musk helped increase ambition around the world. Zilis left OpenAI’s board that same year, before Musk launched a competing AI venture, xAI.