Democracy Dies in Darkness

She had four kids with Elon Musk. Now she’s central to his courtroom fight.

In hours of testimony, Elon Musk’s partner Shivon Zilis opened up about their relationship and her role in creating one of the world’s most valuable AI companies.

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Shivon Zilis, a former OpenAI board member who has four children with Elon Musk, departs court in Oakland, California, on Wednesday. (Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images)
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OAKLAND, Calif. — Shivon Zilis had her back against the wall.

For more than six years, the tech executive had worked largely outside the public eye as a trusted confidante to Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his three co-founders at the artificial intelligence start-up OpenAI. But now, as the company’s recently launched ChatGPT soared, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had discovered that Musk was planning a rival AI venture and poaching talent from the start-up, according to federal court testimony this week.

What readers are saying

The comments express strong negative sentiments towards Elon Musk and his relationship with Shivon Zilis, with many describing their situation as bizarre, dysfunctional, and concerning. Commenters criticize Musk's impact on global issues and AI, and express disdain for the... Show more
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Lizza joined The Washington Post as the paper's first Silicon Valley correspondent in 2016. She writes accountability-driven narratives about high-level figures, institutions, and ideas in the business and tech world - those building the future and shaping the present, from politics to emerging military technologies to health.@lizzadwoskin
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Gerrit De Vynck has been a tech reporter for The Washington Post since 2021. He writes about artificial intelligence and its rapidly-increasing impact on our society. He previously covered tech for seven years at Bloomberg News. He can be reached on Signal at the username GerritD.27@GerritD
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Faiz Siddiqui is a technology reporter with The Washington Post's Business Desk covering companies such as Tesla and Twitter. His area of coverage has also included ride-hailing and the race to build autonomous cars. Prior to that, he covered the D.C. Metro and local transportation scene.@faizsays
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