Musk’s biggest loyalist became his biggest responsibility

I sat down Musk v. Altman In court today, he is painfully aware that no one will ask Shivon Zilis the question on everyone’s mind: Girl, what is it? Asa with you to do?

Zilis, who vowed to be the mother of Musk’s four children, was … Musk’s mentor? He denies that he was “chief of staff” but says that he worked for Musk “throughout the history of AI: Tesla, Neuralink, and OpenAI” since 2017. The two met at OpenAI, and had what he called “one” before becoming “friends and colleagues.” “The departed,” he asserted, were “naturally romantic.”

His job under Musk was to “go find obstacles and solve them,” and he says he works 80 to 100 hours a week doing that. “It was just a banana,” he said. Her first two children with Musk – twins – were born in 2021, while Zilis was serving on the board of OpenAI. He kept this secret. He did not tell the group where his father was Business Insider report on court documents who referred to Musk as father.

“I called my father first,” said Zilis, who testified that even his relatives did not know the children’s parents. “The next call was from Sam Altman.” Greg Brockman, president of OpenAI, testified that he found out about the Zillis children from news reports. When he spoke to her about it, she said that her relationship with Musk is “platonic” and that she had children through IVF. This was enough encouragement for Brockman, who has been his friend since 2013. He remained in the group.

On the spot, Zilisi spoke calmly and quickly. He looked shy. One of the things that made his testimony so bad for Musk was that he appeared to be the only one documenting what Brockman, Altman, Ilya Sutsekever, and Musk were talking about when the co-founders considered options to create a profitable OpenAI team. They were also “facilitating and facilitating communication between large groups.” The document is the most important piece of evidence in the case — more important, even, than Brockman’s book.

The purpose of the direct testimony seemed to be to take the sting out of what Zilis and the plaintiff’s attorneys should have known was coming. So he told the court that his role also meant telling Altman when Musk was “in the right frame of mind” to negotiate — perhaps unwittingly encouraging it. Brockman’s testimony yesterday that at one point he feared Musk would attack him – while vehemently denying that he had given any information to Musk.

See, she and Musk testified that they live together and have a girlfriend and four children. He was originally the complainant in the suit. He kept his father’s secret from his own father. All of these factors may be reason enough to question his testimony that OpenAI submitted its work during a time of turmoil when Altman was fired from the team. He said that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s comments that “we are above them, we are below them, we are close to them” during the crisis as “horrific.” (The article was “We are under them, above them, around them“)

But the notes are what Musk did. Try as he might, Zilis couldn’t explain them.

There were a lot of ideas that were hit in 2017 and 2018. We saw a lot of Zilis emails from that time. Especially in one, the alternative was to “change to profit in the next few weeks (hurry up!”). Another e-mail also said that the “complete disagreement” of Altman, Brockman and Sutskever “is an ironclad agreement not to have Elon (or anyone else) control (sic) of the AGI they create.” Elsewhere he wrote to Musk’s chief financial officer, Jared Birchall, “They say they can’t move forward without a guarantee of relinquishing control. You and I can say it’s stupid what we want but they’re holding on.”

Zilis also learned about Musk suspending the offering before OpenAI. On August 20, 2017, he wrote, “Funding is on hold: OpenAI has to realize this week that $5M in their Q3 is missing, though correctly, it isn’t. Musk told Brockman and Sutskever a week later, on September 1st, that they would get funding.

There were other machines:

We’ve already seen one of his text messages on the dock – where Musk leaves the board and asks him if he needs to be “closer and friendlier” to continue telling him more. In his direct testimony, he tried to say: “They were going through these amazing stages,” he said. But at the cross, we found that he did not remember that in his deposition.

“Your long-held memories have been brought back,” said Sarah Eddy, a lawyer for OpenAI, in one of the comic strips. Sure, Musk’s team objected and the opposition was encouraged, but we all heard it. In fact, it was one of several trips Zilis seems to have remembered that he didn’t have, a memory that – coincidentally I’m sure – turned out to be good in Musk’s case.

To be fair, Zilis has done a great job under the supervision of everyone we’ve seen so far, but he hasn’t been found to be genuine. And there was another reason to be suspicious of him when we found out how he left the board, which – according to what he wrote – happened “because I got a call from Sam and he said, ‘I heard that Elon is starting a competitive career’ and I said, ‘If it’s true, now is the time for him to resign.’

Strangely, they forgot to call between the installation and today. But it seems he knew Musk was running on AI when he texted his friend, who was on his phone as “Shahini Rubicon Fluffer.” (Awesome name. Thomas Pynchon will be so jealous.) “Should leave the OpenAI board btw,” he wrote. “E’s effort is well known.” His friend was not surprised by this revelation. Zilis continued: “When the father of your children starts competing and hiring from OpenAI there is nothing to do.”

Zilis added that Musk “profusely apologized for cutting off my friends’ networks.”

Here’s what added up, as far as I know: His loyalty was and is Musk. To believe that he didn’t know about xAI, I have to believe that even though he had – at that time – three children and the amount of time he spent with them every week, he didn’t discuss it with him. I don’t believe that. Who would? There is ample evidence in his conference speech that he has always kept information from OpenAI on Musk’s behalf – xAI will be no different. I also can’t believe they didn’t give Musk the information about the Microsoft companies he accepted when he was on the OpenAI board.

Musk had no problem turning all of OpenAI to profit or bowing down to a philanthropic community by recruiting high-powered researchers. He didn’t mind the idea of ​​getting into Tesla in different ways. The thing he he said the mind did not control it. This is what I extracted from Zilis’s texts and emails.

Brockman and the OpenAI team were too stupid to allow Zilis to continue working there after hearing about his twin father. But then, perhaps no one expected such a mild-mannered man to be so treacherous. He was smart enough not to raise his voice or ask any obvious questions during the interview, so his reading was more reliable than anyone we’ve ever seen. It’s just that all she took from her written statement is that she puts Musk first in her life. Everyone else – including, apparently, his own father – comes second. So by standing up, you might think he’s saying what Musk wants to hear too.