Sam Altman once texted Elon Musk ’s ex-girlfriend and baby mama Shivon Zilis asking whether he should publicly praise the Tesla CEO on X (formerly Twitter). The message was disclosed in a court filing in Elon Musk’s case against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman. It dates back to February 9, 2023 and reads:
“BTW, good idea for me to tweet something nice about Elon? Have been meaning to do this after he DMd about not being in the photo from the first day of OpenAI. Just about how much I and others look up to him, how critical his early contributions to OpenAI are, etc”.
Interestingly, less than a week later this message, Altman shared a post where he said: “society underestimates how much it owes elon for raising the collective ambition level at a time when optimism for the future was receding”, a possible hint at Zilis’ approval of Altman publicly praising Musk.
From co-founders to rivals in AI
Elon Musk and Sam Altman were among the original co-founders of OpenAI in 2015, alongside figures like Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, and others. Their shared goal was to create artificial intelligence that would benefit humanity — and to do so transparently, as a non-profit alternative to big tech companies like Google.
Though Musk initially provided both funding and strategic direction to OpenAI, by 2018, tensions had reportedly emerged between Musk and the rest of the leadership over the organization’s pace of progress and its direction.
Altman’s message from 2023 shows how he tried to repair his relationship with Musk.
As for Shivon Zilis, she has four children with Musk. In 2017, she joined Neuralink, a company co-founded by Elon Musk, where she currently serves as Director of Operations & Special. She served on OpenAI’s board until March 2023.
“BTW, good idea for me to tweet something nice about Elon? Have been meaning to do this after he DMd about not being in the photo from the first day of OpenAI. Just about how much I and others look up to him, how critical his early contributions to OpenAI are, etc”.
Interestingly, less than a week later this message, Altman shared a post where he said: “society underestimates how much it owes elon for raising the collective ambition level at a time when optimism for the future was receding”, a possible hint at Zilis’ approval of Altman publicly praising Musk.
From co-founders to rivals in AI
Elon Musk and Sam Altman were among the original co-founders of OpenAI in 2015, alongside figures like Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, and others. Their shared goal was to create artificial intelligence that would benefit humanity — and to do so transparently, as a non-profit alternative to big tech companies like Google.
Though Musk initially provided both funding and strategic direction to OpenAI, by 2018, tensions had reportedly emerged between Musk and the rest of the leadership over the organization’s pace of progress and its direction.
Altman’s message from 2023 shows how he tried to repair his relationship with Musk.
As for Shivon Zilis, she has four children with Musk. In 2017, she joined Neuralink, a company co-founded by Elon Musk, where she currently serves as Director of Operations & Special. She served on OpenAI’s board until March 2023.
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