"When the Father of Your Babies Competes": Shivon Zilis, Mother of Four of Elon Musk's Children, Takes Stand in OpenAI Trial

6 May 2026 | Oakland, California

OAKLAND, California – The woman who shares four children with the world's richest man took the stand Wednesday. And her testimony may determine the fate of the world's most valuable AI startup.

Shivon Zilis, a Neuralink executive and the mother of four of Elon Musk's children, testified in the high-stakes OpenAI trial – revealing intimate details about her relationship with Musk and her role as a "facilitator" between him and the company after his departure.

Zilis, 40, served on OpenAI's board from 2020 to 2023 and had worked with the company since 2016. Her testimony offered a rare inside look at the fractured relationships at the heart of Musk's $134 billion lawsuit against the ChatGPT maker.

"Do You Prefer I Stay Close and Friendly?": The Texts That Shocked the Court

In pre-trial filings, OpenAI's lawyers questioned the exact nature of Zilis's relationship with Musk and presented communications to suggest she was working as an inside source for him after he left the company.

"Do 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 on how to do right by you is appreciated," Zilis texted Musk in 2018, according to court filings.

"Close 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't actively recruit them," Musk responded.

The exchange painted a picture of a complex relationship – Zilis, still on good terms with OpenAI's leadership, while also loyal to Musk. Another text from 2023 showed Altman seeking her advice on how to influence Musk: "BTW, good idea for me to tweet something nice about Elon?"

The "Tricky Half Breakup": Zilis as Facilitator

When Musk left OpenAI's board in February 2018, Zilis testified, during this "tricky half breakup" she played the role of facilitator with OpenAI.

"They were kind of bad at speaking to each other," she said. "My role historically had been to facilitate communication between all of the major parties to make a maximal alignment between them."

Altman invited Zilis to join the board in 2020, and she said she agreed because she "spent the last decade of my life wanting AI to go well for humanity." When asked whether she funneled information to Musk while on the board, she responded: "Funnel? Certainly not."

But the texts suggested otherwise.

The Secret Children: How the Relationship Became Public

The extent of Zilis's personal relationship with Musk wasn't publicly known until 2022, when Business Insider reported that she had had twins with Musk the year before. The case has revealed additional information: the two became romantically involved around 2016, according to Zilis's testimony, and she lives in a house in Austin, Texas, where he sometimes stays when visiting their children.

Zilis said that she decided to have children with Musk around the end of 2020 when he told her he would "be happy to make a donation." They now have four children together.

When Musk took the stand last week, he referred to Zilis as the mother of his children and testified that he lives with Zilis. The couple has been seen more recently holding hands and attending events together, including dinners with Donald Trump at the White House and Mar-a-Lago.

Zilis testified that she had signed a confidentiality agreement with Musk to not disclose they had children together. But when she was contacted by Business Insider about the story, she said: "First call was to my dad. The next call was to Sam Altman."

OpenAI's board voted to let her stay on – even after learning she had children with Musk.

"When the Father of Your Babies Competes": The Text That Sums It All Up

Zilis eventually left the board when Musk started his own, competing AI company, xAI, in 2023. One of the documents that came up during her testimony was a text exchange with a friend about this turn of events.

"E's effort has become well known," Zilis texted.

"Fuck," the friend responded. "You ok."

"When the father of your babies starts a competitive effort and will recruit out of OpenAI – there's nothing to be done," Zilis replied.

The text captured the impossible position Zilis found herself in: loyal to Musk, committed to OpenAI's mission, and caught in the middle of a billion-dollar legal war.

The Case Against OpenAI: What Musk Wants

Musk's case against OpenAI alleges that the company's CEO, Sam Altman, and president, Greg Brockman – co-founders 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. He is also seeking the undoing of the for-profit restructuring and $134 billion in damages to be redistributed to OpenAI's non-profit arm.

OpenAI rejects all of Musk's allegations and over the course of the trial, now in its second week, has tried to prove that he was always on board with the intentions to shift to a for-profit structure. The company's lawyers have argued that Musk was essentially a sore loser who left the company in 2018 after a failed bid for control and was seeking vengeance due to OpenAI's success.

Zilis's AI Awakening: From 13-Year-Old Reader to Neuralink Executive

During her testimony, Zilis offered a glimpse into her personal journey with AI. She said she first became enthralled with AI as a 13-year-old growing up in the suburbs of a town in Ontario, Canada. She read the book Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil – about AI merging with human consciousness.

"I read it 10 to 15 times and it never left me from there," Zilis said. "AI is going to be the most influential thing humanity creates."

She went to Yale University and, immediately after, started working in the tech industry, first at IBM and eventually landing as an adviser at OpenAI in 2016. It was there that she met Musk, when he was standing outside the office one day talking to Altman.

By mid-2017, Zilis had begun working for Musk at Tesla and Neuralink. She said her job was to "go find the bottlenecks and go help solve them." Zilis said she worked 80- to 100-hour weeks: "It was just bananas."

What Comes Next?

The trial continues. More witnesses will testify. Musk has already taken the stand. Brockman testified earlier this week. Zilis's testimony provided a human lens on a billion-dollar legal battle – one that pits the world's richest man against the company he helped found.

At its heart, the case raises a fundamental question: Did OpenAI betray its founding mission – or did Musk simply lose control?

Zilis, caught in the middle, offered her answer in a single text: "When the father of your babies starts a competitive effort and will recruit out of OpenAI, there's nothing to be done."

Stay updated with the latest tech trends headlines on our Tech Trends Page.