Shivon Zilis: The Stealth Architect Behind OpenAI’s Formative Years
First As the week of trials in the Musk v. Altman case draws to a close, one person has emerged as a critical behind-the-scenes manager of communications and egos in OpenAI’s early years: Shivon Zilis.
A longtime employee of Musk and mother of four of his children, Zilis joined OpenAI in 2016 as a consultant. She later served as director of the nonprofit board from 2020 to 2023 and served as an executive at Musk’s other companies, Neuralink and Tesla.
The Role of Shivon Zilis in OpenAI’s Early Dynamics
When Musk was asked in court about the nature of his relationship with Zilis, he gave several answers. At one point he called her a “chief of staff.” Later a “close advisor”. At another point, he said, “We live together and she is the mother of four of my children,” although Zilis said in a statement that Musk was more of a regular guest and had his own residence. Last September, Zilis told OpenAI’s lawyers that she became friends with Musk around 2016 after becoming an informal advisor to OpenAI. They had their first two children in 2021, she said.
Legal Implications and the Musk-OpenAI Connection
But OpenAI’s lawyers have argued through testimony and evidence that their most important role in this lawsuit is to establish a covert connection between OpenAI and Musk, even years after he left the nonprofit’s board in February 2018.
“Would you prefer that I stay close and friendly with OpenAI to keep the information flowing, or start distancing myself? The trust game is about to get tricky, so we would be grateful for any guidance on how to get it right,” Zilis wrote in a text message to Musk on February 16, 2018, a few days before OpenAI announced he was leaving the board. Musk responded: “Near and friendly, but we will actively try to move three or four people from OpenAI to Tesla. More will come over time, but we will not actively recruit them.”
When asked about this exchange on the witness stand, Musk said he wanted to “know what was going on.”
The Strategic Influence of Shivon Zilis
In the same text thread, Musk wrote: “There is little chance that OpenAI will become a force to be reckoned with if I focus on Tesla AI.” Zilis backed him up, saying, “The likelihood of a good future is very low unless someone slows Demis down,” referring to Demis Hassabis, the head of Google DeepMind, who Musk said he didn’t trust to control a super-intelligent AI system. “You don’t realize how much you have the ability to directly influence him or otherwise slow him down. I think you know that I’m not a malicious person, but in this case, not finding a way to slow down or change his path feels fundamentally irresponsible.”
About two months later, Zilis updated Musk in an April 23, 2018 email about OpenAI’s fundraising efforts and the progress of a project to develop an AI that could play video games. In the same message, she said she had reallocated most of her time from OpenAI to its other companies, Neuralink and Tesla, but told him: “If you would prefer that I regain more hours to oversee OpenAI, please let me know.”
The Power Dynamics and Corporate Reorganization
Almost a year earlier, in the summer of 2017, OpenAI’s co-founders had begun negotiating changes to the organization’s corporate structure – Musk wanted control of the company to be taken immediately. In an August 28, 2017 email, Zilis wrote to Musk that she had met with OpenAI President Greg Brockman and co-founder Ilya Sutskever to discuss how equity should be divided in the new company. She summarized the points of the meeting, including that Brockman and Sutskever believed that one person should not have unilateral power over AGI if they were to develop it. Musk wrote back to Zilis: “This is very annoying. Please encourage them to start a company. I’ve had enough.”
For more on the intricate dynamics of OpenAI’s early years and Shivon Zilis’s pivotal role, read the full article Here.
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