#elon musk

Musk was “prepared to do the for-profit, provided he would get control.”

In the second week of the trial pitting Elon Musk against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, former board member Shivon Zilis took the stand before judge and jury. Zilis is romantically involved with Musk as he is the father of her four children. In this edition, we look back at what pushed the tech magnate to file this lawsuit to begin with and put in context Zilis's testimony that Musk wanted OpenAI to be a subsidiary of Tesla. Also in this segment: FIFA boss Gianni Infantino defends the 2026 World Cup's high ticket prices.

Elon Musk’s AI ambitions are converging on multiple fronts simultaneously. SpaceX is considering spending up to $119 billion on a semiconductor facility in Grimes County, Texas, dubbed “Terafab” — a vertically integrated chip manufacturing complex developed alongside Tesla and Intel. The facility is intended to produce chips for AI servers, satellites, autonomous vehicles, and SpaceX’s proposed orbital […]

I sat down in the Musk v. Altman trial courtroom today, painfully aware that no one was going to ask Shivon Zilis the question on everyone's minds: Girl, what the fuck are you doing? Zilis, who testified under oath that she is the mother of four of Musk's children, was… what's the best way to characterize this? A Musk advisor? She denies she was a "chief of staff" but says she worked for Musk's "entire AI portfolio: Tesla, Neuralink, and OpenAI" starting in 2017. The two met through OpenAI, and they had what she referred to as a "one off" before becoming "friends and colleagues." The "one off," she confirmed, was "romantic in nature." Her … Read the full story at The Verge.

Messages between Shivon Zilis and Tesla executives reveal plans in 2017 to start a rival AI lab, potentially led by Altman or Demis Hassabis.

Shivon Zilis worked closely with Elon Musk while she was on OpenAI’s board of directors. Her ties to the world’s richest man were detailed in a landmark trial on Wednesday.

Testimony from billionaire’s confidante Shivon Zilis reveals wrangling over the future of the AI lab that led to lawsuit

In an unexpected turn, the two companies signed a deal for Anthropic to use computing resources from Elon Musk’s xAI.

Cutthroat negotiations between startup founders are rarely shared so publicly, especially when a company becomes as world-changing as OpenAI.

SpaceX, Elon Musk's space company that also houses his AI company, xAI, is considering spending $55 billion, at least initially, to build a semiconductor factory in Texas, according to a filing with Grimes County.

Shivon Zilis, an executive at Musk’s brain implant startup Neuralink, served on OpenAI’s board from 2020 to 2023 Shivon Zilis, a Neuralink executive and the mother of four of Elon Musk’s children, took the stand on Wednesday as one of the most highly anticipated witnesses in Musk’s case against OpenAI. The ChatGPT maker has argued that, while Zilis worked with OpenAI between 2016 and 2023, she was also involved in a secret relationship with Musk, acting as an informant for him. Musk’s case against OpenAI alleges that CEO Sam Altman and president Greg Brockman, co-founders of the company with Musk, broke a founding agreement when they restructured it from a non-profit to a for-profit enterprise. The Tesla CEO accuses Altman and Brockman of unjustly enriching themselves and wants both removed from their positions at the startup, one of the most valuable in the world. He is also seeking the undoing of the for-profit and $134bn in damages to be redistributed to OpenAI’s non-profit arm. Co

Microsoft, Google DeepMind and Elon Musk’s xAI have offered to let the U.S. government access new AI models ahead of their general release, which sets up a new phase in Silicon Valley’s often fractious relationship with the US government’s fear of AI threats, based on the latest report of AI companies offering models to U.S. officials in the name of security review, in the hopes that government analysts can vet frontier AI systems for security threats like cyberattacks and military use before it is exposed for public consumption by developers and users, and, inevitably, those who should have no business […]

OpenAI’s president wrapped his testimony on Tuesday by revealing a fiery meeting with Musk and subsequent efforts to remove several board members.

Elon Musk argued the journals show the moment when OpenAI abandoned its mission.

Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president, testified in a trial pitting Mr. Musk against his company that the world’s richest man was eager to change how it operated as a nonprofit.

Greg Brockman has faced questions about his emails, texts and writings in his personal diary in second week of the trial As Elon Musk’s case against OpenAI entered its second week, focus shifted to the company’s president, Greg Brockman. Over the course of several hours on Monday and Tuesday, Brockman faced questions about his emails, texts and one piece of evidence that has become central to the trial: his personal diary. Musk’s lawsuit revolves around his allegation that Brockman, OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman violated the founding agreement of the artificial intelligence firm by turning it into a for-profit entity. Musk argues that Altman and Brockman also unjustly enriched themselves in the process, essentially taking Musk’s money while deceiving him about their true intent for the business. He is seeking Altman and Brockman’s removal, the undoing of the for-profit restructuring and $134bn, which Musk wants distributed to OpenAI’s non-profit. Continue reading...

Google DeepMind, Microsoft, and Elon Musk's xAI have agreed to allow the US government to review new AI models before they're released to the public. In an announcement on Tuesday, the Commerce Department's Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) says it will work with the AI companies to perform "pre-deployment evaluations and targeted research to better assess frontier AI capabilities." CAISI, which started evaluating models from OpenAI and Anthropic in 2024, says it has performed 40 reviews so far. Both companies "have renegotiated their existing partnerships with the center to better align with priorities in President Donald Trum … Read the full story at The Verge.

About a week into the Musk v. Altman trial, we've heard from some of the most powerful people in tech - including OpenAI president Greg Brockman, Elon Musk's fixer Jared Birchall, and Musk himself. But one of the most prominent characters is hovering around the margins: Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind. Hassabis is the architect of Google's in-house AI lab. He founded DeepMind as an independent startup in 2010 and sold it to Google four years later, reportedly for between $400-650 million. Since then, he's been at the helm of many of Google's largest AI research breakthroughs, like AlphaFold - and he's climbed the ladder from there, … Read the full story at The Verge.

The Elon Musk versus OpenAI trial intensified this week with two significant developments: the emergence of threatening pre-trial text messages from Musk, and testimony from a prominent AI safety expert called by Musk’s legal team. According to a court filing submitted by OpenAI’s lawyers, Musk contacted OpenAI president Greg Brockman two days before the trial […]

When the bromance sours, we all end up in court. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images The strongest witness for Elon Musk's case against OpenAI so far has been Greg Brockman's journal. Brockman himself is running as a close second. Brockman was called to the stand in a rather unusual way - he was cross-examined first, followed by a direct examination - and he had some serious high school debate club energy. There was a lot of "I wouldn't characterize it that way," "I wouldn't say it that way," and "That sounds like something I wrote. Can I see it in context?" When Musk's attorney, Steven Molo, read some of the evidence aloud, Brockman would pedantically correct him if he skipped a word, even if that word was "a" or "the." Wh … Read the full story at The Verge.