Shivon Zilis, the mother of four of Elon Musk’s children, revealed in court Wednesday personal details about her complicated and once-secret relationship with the tech billionaire, providing a rare glimpse into their private life during a high-profile legal battle over artificial intelligence.
Zilis, who is also a longtime adviser to Musk, took the witness stand on the sixth day of his lawsuit against fellow OpenAI co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. Musk alleges the executives abandoned OpenAI’s original nonprofit mission in pursuit of profit and personal gain.
The 40-year-old revealed that sometime after she joined OpenAI in 2016, she had a romantic “one-off” with Musk. But she insisted her personal relationship with Musk never influenced her judgment as an OpenAI board member, which she served on from 2020 to 2023.
“I had an allegiance to the best outcome, AI for humanity,” she testified during questioning by Musk attorney Jennifer Schubert.
The court heard how Musk “offered to make a donation” in a “platonic sperm donor” arrangement after Zilis decided she wanted to become a single mother – an arrangement that later developed into a romantic partnership.
Zilis admitted she only disclosed her relationship with Musk to OpenAI’s board after Business Insider informed her it planned to publish a story about it.
She testified that she and Musk “had agreed on complete confidentiality” regarding his sperm donation because of security concerns surrounding the billionaire.
“If he was indeed just a donor, it didn’t seem fair to put that burden on them,” she said.
Last year, Zilis announced she and Musk had welcomed a fourth child together. Musk has 14 known children with four different women, according to People Magazine.
On Tuesday, Greg Brockman testified that Zilis told him in 2021 that she was pregnant with twins but did not initially identify Musk as the father.
“She said it was via IVF and that it was entirely platonic with Elon,” Brockman testified.
According to Brockman, several OpenAI board members later pushed to remove Zilis because of her relationship with Musk.
“We actually had a board vote and decided to let her stay. We trusted her to keep the Elon conflict under control,” Brockman said.
When asked whether it was her job “to funnel information to Elon,” Zilis replied, “Funnel? Absolutely not.”
Schubert also questioned Zilis about a message she sent Musk saying the “trust game is about to get tricky” in relation to other OpenAI board members. Zilis rejected the idea that she had been deceptive with Altman and Brockman.
“I would have preferred it if I’d written ‘trust framework,’” rather than “trust game,” she testified.
Zilis described OpenAI’s leadership tensions in 2017 as a “weird half-breakup,” adding, “I think I wanted to figure out how to navigate, if I was still going to be a facilitation or a bridge.”
She left the OpenAI board in 2023 after Musk launched rival company xAI. Zilis has also worked at Musk-led companies including Neuralink and Tesla.
The ongoing trial in California holds significant implications for OpenAI, the company behind the widely adopted ChatGPT chatbot.
OpenAI has raised billions from investors and is reportedly eyeing a potential trillion-dollar initial public offering. Musk is seeking fundamental changes to the company's governance and $150 billion in damages.
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