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.
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.
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.
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.
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