Shivon Zilis, a former OpenAI board member and longtime associate of Elon Musk, has testified in the high-profile civil trial between Musk and OpenAI, placing her role inside the artificial intelligence company under intense scrutiny.
Zilis, now an executive at Neuralink and the mother of four of Musk’s children, appeared as a key witness in the case, which centers on Musk’s claim that OpenAI and its leaders abandoned the organization’s founding nonprofit mission by moving toward a profit-driven structure. OpenAI has denied wrongdoing and argues that Musk previously supported a for-profit model when he believed he could control it.
During her testimony, Zilis denied allegations that she secretly acted as Musk’s inside channel while serving on OpenAI’s board from 2020 to 2023. OpenAI’s lawyers have portrayed her as a close Musk loyalist who helped keep him informed about internal developments after he left the company’s board in 2018. Zilis rejected suggestions that she improperly “funneled” confidential information to Musk, saying her focus was on advancing artificial intelligence in a way that benefited humanity.
Court filings and messages presented during the trial showed Zilis discussing with Musk whether she should remain close to OpenAI to keep communication open. Musk, according to reports, encouraged her to stay friendly with OpenAI while also helping recruit talent for Tesla. The exchanges have become central to OpenAI’s effort to argue that Musk remained closely involved with the company’s affairs long after his formal departure.
Zilis also testified about her personal relationship with Musk, confirming details that added an unusually intimate dimension to an already contentious courtroom battle. OpenAI President Greg Brockman previously testified that Zilis had not initially disclosed Musk’s paternity of her twins while she was on the board, a fact Zilis said was kept private for safety reasons.
The trial has exposed deep fractures among OpenAI’s founders and former leaders. Earlier testimony from former Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati described internal distrust and “chaos” under CEO Sam Altman, while Musk has argued that OpenAI betrayed the nonprofit principles he says guided its creation.
Zilis’s testimony matters because it cuts to a core question in the case: whether Musk was an excluded founder watching OpenAI drift from its mission, or whether he remained connected to the organization through allies while pursuing his own competing artificial intelligence ambitions. The answer could influence not only Musk’s lawsuit, but also broader debates over OpenAI’s governance, commercial power and accountability.
