Former board member of OpenAI Inc. Shivon Zilis arrives in federal court in Oakland, California, US, on Wednesday, May 6, 2026.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | getty images
The high-profile hearing in Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will conclude its second week of proceedings on Thursday.
Musk’s lawyers called several witnesses during the week, including OpenAI President Greg Brockman and Shivon Zilis, who served on the startup’s board and has close personal and professional ties to Musk. Altman and many other officials including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, May still be called to testify.
Zilis, who has four children with Musk, took the stand on Wednesday and was questioned by Musk and OpenAI lawyers about conversations they had around 2017 and 2018 about OpenAI’s corporate structure.
Musk sued OpenAI, Altman and Brockman in 2024, alleging they reneged on their promise to keep the artificial intelligence company non-profit and adhere to its charitable mission. He co-founded the startup with Altman and Brockman in 2015.
OpenAI established a for-profit subsidiary after Musk left the company in 2018, and that business unit is the central focus of their lawsuit.
During his testimony, Zilis said that his primary role at OpenAI was to serve as a liaison between Musk, Altman, Brockman, and Ilya Sutskever, another co-founder of the company.
Zilis testified that the four executives discussed OpenAI’s corporate structure, which included several different options for profit. At one point during the conversation, Zilis said Musk wanted OpenAI to get involved TeslaAnd he offered Altman a board seat at the company.
“There were a lot of arguments about all the different possible structures that could be established at that time,” Zillis said.
Text messages and e-mails presented as evidence between Zillis and Musk show that Musk, while still on OpenAI’s board, was working to lure top talent from the company’s ranks, contrary to his earlier claims.
They also stopped making regulatory donations as OpenAI considered starting a for-profit arm. In communications between Zilis and another Musk employee, Sam Taylor, in August 2017, Zilis referenced a “funding freeze”, although he had not informed his co-founders about the decision.
Zilis wrote that “OpenAI is likely to realize this week” that $5 million of funding for the quarter was withheld, and “it would likely have a major psychological impact on them if they found out.”
In February 2018, as it became clear that OpenAI would not be joining Tesla, Zilis messaged Musk asking if he wanted him to stay closer to the team there or maintain some distance.
He responded, “Close and friendly but we’re going to actively try to move three or four people from OpenAI to Tesla.” “Even more people will join over time but we will not be actively recruiting them.”
Elon Musk stands in an elevator to attend a lawsuit to turn OpenAI into profit in a federal court on April 30, 2026 in Oakland, California, US.
Manuel Orbegozo | reuters
Musk, who previously testified at the trial, said Andrej Karpathy, who left OpenAI to lead Tesla’s Autopilot efforts, was already leaving the nonprofit, and Musk was not actively courting people to join Tesla.
After the OpenAI lawyer showed Zilis text messages celebrating Musk’s proposal to Karpathy and his acceptance, Zilis admitted that Musk had previously contacted Karpathy.
Musk said in his testimony that he was not entirely opposed to the for-profit branch of OpenAI, but that it had become “the tail wagging the dog”. He repeatedly accused Altman and Brockman of trying to “steal a charity”.
Zilis’s emails revealed that Musk considered creating an AI lab within Tesla that would compete directly with OpenAI, and potentially Google’s DeepMind. But Zilis testified that such a laboratory never came into existence.
Instead, Musk plans to launch a competing AI venture, XAI, in 2023. They merged that business with SpaceX earlier this year. Musk said on Wednesday that xAI is now known as SpacexAI.
Zilis wrote in a text message to a friend on February 25, 2023, as news was spreading that Musk was launching a. OpenAI’s competitors, “There is nothing to be done when the father of your children starts a competing effort and will recruit from OpenAI.”
Zilis worked at several of Musk’s companies, including OpenAI. Tesla and brain tech startup Neuralink. He said he started working with OpenAI as an informal consultant in 2016, which is when he met Musk.
After Musk left the company, he served on the board of OpenAI from 2020 to 2023. The couple had several children together during this period, although Zilis testified that Musk’s involvement was initially kept a secret.
Zillis said he signed a non-disclosure agreement with Musk about his “donations” and agreed to “complete confidentiality”, partly to protect the children from the safety risk of being associated with Musk, but also because he was not initially planning on being an active father to his children.
She testified that Musk remains actively involved today and that they spend “family time” together when he is in Austin, Texas, and sometimes while traveling.
Zilis said that when he learned that the press was pursuing the story, he ultimately had to tell Altman that Musk was the father of her children.
OpenAI allowed Zilis to retain his board seat despite personal conflicts, but he said he ultimately resigned in 2023 as talk spread about Musk starting a competitor.
Watch: Musk vs. Altman lawsuit is underway: Here’s what you need to know
