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As the first<\/span> week of trial in Musk v. Altman<\/em> comes to a close, one person has emerged as a critical behind-the-scenes manager of communications and egos in OpenAI\u2019s early years: Shivon Zilis.<\/p>\n A longtime employee of Musk and the mother to four of his children, Zilis first joined OpenAI as an advisor in 2016. She later served as a director of its nonprofit board from 2020 until 2023 and has also worked as an executive at Musk\u2019s other companies, Neuralink and Tesla.<\/p>\n When asked about the nature of his relationship with Zilis in court, Musk offered several answers. At one point, he called her a \u201cchief of staff.\u201d Later, a \u201cclose advisor.\u201d At another point, he said \u201cwe live together and she\u2019s the mother of four of my children,\u201d though Zilis said in a deposition that Musk is more of a regular guest and maintains his own residence. Last September, Zilis told OpenAI\u2019s attorneys that she became romantic with Musk around 2016 after she had become an informal advisor to OpenAI. They had their first two children in 2021, she said.<\/p>\n But OpenAI\u2019s lawyers have made the case in witness testimonies and evidence that her most important role, as it pertains to this lawsuit, is being a covert liaison between OpenAI and Musk, even years after he left the nonprofit\u2019s board in February 2018.<\/p>\n \u201cDo 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 for how to do right by you is appreciated,\u201d Zilis wrote in a text message to Musk on February 16, 2018, days before OpenAI announced he was leaving the board. Musk responded, \u201cClose 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\u2019t actively recruit them.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked about this exchange on the witness stand, Musk said he \u201cwanted to know what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n In the same text thread, Musk said \u201cthere is little chance of OpenAI being a serious force if I focus on Tesla AI.\u201d Zilis reaffirmed him, saying: \u201cThere is very low probability of a good future if someone doesn\u2019t slow Demis down,\u201d referring to the leader of Google DeepMind, who Musk has said he didn\u2019t trust to control a superintelligent AI system. \u201cYou don\u2019t realize how much you have an ability to influence him directly or otherwise slow him down. I think you know I\u2019m not a malicious person but in this case it feels fundamentally irresponsible to not find a way to slow or alter his path.\u201d<\/p>\n Roughly two months later, in an email from April 23, 2018, Zilis updated Musk on OpenAI\u2019s fundraising efforts and progress on a project to develop an AI that could play video games. In the same message, she said she had reallocated most of her time away from OpenAI to his other companies, Neuralink and Tesla, but told him, \u201cif you\u2019d prefer I pull more hours back to OpenAI oversight please let me know.\u201d<\/p>\n Almost a year earlier, in the summer of 2017, OpenAI\u2019s cofounders had started negotiating changes to the organization\u2019s corporate structure\u2014Musk wanted control of the company to start out. In an email from August 28, 2017, Zilis wrote to Musk that she had met with Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever to discuss how equity would be divided up in the new company. She summarized points from the meeting, including that Brockman and Sutskever thought one person shouldn\u2019t have unilateral power over AGI, should they develop it. Musk wrote back to Zilis, \u201cThis is very annoying. Please encourage them to go start a company. I\u2019ve had enough.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n