{"id":50094,"date":"2026-05-07T01:21:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T01:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/business\/elon-musks-last-ditch-effort-to-control-openai-recruit-sam-altman-to-tesla\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T01:21:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T01:21:12","slug":"elon-musks-last-ditch-effort-to-control-openai-recruit-sam-altman-to-tesla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/business\/elon-musks-last-ditch-effort-to-control-openai-recruit-sam-altman-to-tesla\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk\u2019s Last-Ditch Effort to Control OpenAI: Recruit Sam Altman to Tesla"},"content":{"rendered":"

Save StorySave this storySave StorySave this story<\/p>\n

A few months before Elon Musk left OpenAI\u2019s board of directors in February 2018, he tried to recruit Sam Altman to join a \u201cworld-class AI lab\u201d within Tesla. Musk went as far as offering the OpenAI CEO a Tesla board seat, according to emails and testimony presented in federal court on Wednesday during the Musk v. Altman<\/em> trial<\/a>. The emails were shown to a jury during the cross examination of Shivon Zilis, a former OpenAI adviser and board member who is also the mother of four of Musk\u2019s children.<\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s core claim in this lawsuit is that Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman effectively stole a nonprofit, using the $38 million Musk invested to create a private company worth more than $800 billion today. On Wednesday, lawyers for Musk showed video depositions of former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati and former OpenAI board member Helen Toner, to raise concerns over Altman\u2019s alleged history of deceit.<\/p>\n

OpenAI\u2019s legal team has responded to Musk\u2019s claims by questioning his true motives, arguing that the Tesla CEO has had \u201csour grapes\u201d ever since he failed to assume control of OpenAI in 2017. He has since started a rival, for-profit AI lab. OpenAI\u2019s lawyers used Zilis\u2019 cross-examination on Wednesday to bring up evidence about Musk\u2019s alleged plans to subvert OpenAI, and tried to suggest Zilis was privy to those plans. As it pertains to this case, one of Zilis\u2019 most important roles at OpenAI was acting as a conduit between Musk and Altman.<\/p>\n

In a text from February 2018 presented as evidence, Zilis\u2014then an OpenAI adviser, as well as a Neuralink and Tesla executive\u2014asked Altman, \u201cDid you think through a B Corp subsidiary of Tesla?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was documentary evidence that, at several points, Mr. Musk had contemplated seeking to join Sam Altman to the board and offered that option,\u201d said OpenAI lawyer William Savitt outside the courthouse on Wednesday. \u201cIt was part of Mr. Musk\u2019s effort to corrupt OpenAI and absorb it into Tesla \u2026 he was trying to get Altman to abandon the mission and be part of Tesla.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Are you a current or former OpenAI or Tesla employee who wants to talk about what's happening? We'd like to hear from you. Using a nonwork phone or computer, contact the reporters securely on Signal at Mzeff.88 and Peard33.24.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

In an email to Tesla\u2019s VP of communications, Sarah O'Brien, from November 2017, Zilis shared a draft of an FAQ page about an event Tesla was planning to hold at the NeurIPS AI conference. \u201cThe purpose of this event is to share that Tesla is building a world leading AI lab(?) which will rival the likes of Google \/ DeepMind and Facebook AI Research,\u201d the drafted FAQ read. The document continues, \u201cOne major issue for Tesla is when people think of Elon and AI, they think of OpenAI.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another part of the FAQ labeled \u201cWho?\u201d lists several Tesla executives who were planned to lead the unit, including Musk and Andrej Karpathy, a former OpenAI researcher. Altman\u2019s name is listed next to Musk\u2019s with two question marks beside it.<\/p>\n

The FAQ is marked up with notes including that Altman could be a moderator for the NeurIPS event, which "could be a forcing function for Sam to commit to TeslaAI.\u201d Another note reads that Tesla AI's "strategy had yet to be defined and some of it may be deeply proprietary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zilis testified on Wednesday that Altman never ended up joining Tesla, and the AI lab and the NeurIPS launch event never came to fruition. She also testified that Musk reached out to Karpathy about recruiting him to Tesla. Savitt told reporters that Zilis\u2019 testimony on Karpathy is \u201cdirectly contrary to what Mr. Musk told the jury just a few days ago.\u201d Earlier in this trial, Musk testified that Karpathy left OpenAI of his own volition.<\/p>\n

In text messages from June 2017, Zilis responded \u201cFuck yeahhhhhhh\u201d when told by Tesla colleagues that Karpathy had signed an official offer. Another employee asked if OpenAI would be mad about Karpathy\u2019s hire, followed by a smiley face emoticon. Zilis said it was a good question, but said she had \u201ctalked to Greg [Brockman] today and he clearly had no idea \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

It was already known that Musk wanted OpenAI to merge with Tesla, but evidence presented on Wednesday revealed new details about the plans. In an email to another Tesla employee from October 2017, Zilis said that OpenAI\u2019s cofounders had not \u201cinternalized the advantages of burying this in Tesla for stealth advantage.\u201d When OpenAI\u2019s lawyers asked Zilis whether \u201cburying\u201d meant Tesla was planning to close-source its AI, she said no. \u201cIt\u2019s just a small fish in a big pond,\u201d said Zilis.<\/p>\n

In another email from Zilis to Musk in February 2018, the same month Musk stepped down from OpenAI\u2019s board, Zilis shared several scenarios about how to create an effective counterbalance to Google DeepMind, which Musk viewed as a major threat. One of the scenarios was having Altman run a Tesla AI lab. Another scenario read, \u201cFind a way to get Demis. Seriously,\u201d referring to the leader of Google DeepMind, Demis Hassabis. \u201cMaybe he comes to Tesla somehow or DeepMind is spun out,\u201d Zilis wrote.<\/p>\n

Almost two years later, in January 2020, Zilis was appointed to OpenAI\u2019s board of directors. During her time as a board member, Zilis testified that she became pregnant with Musk\u2019s children through IVF, but did not disclose this to the other board members due to a confidentiality agreement she had signed with Musk. When Business Insider reached out to her in 2022, informing Zilis it planned to break a story on the children later that day, Zilis said she called her father, and then Altman.<\/p>\n

But Zilis continued to serve as an OpenAI board member until February 2023, months before Musk announced the launch of his competing AI lab, xAI. Zilis testified that she resigned after learning about Musk\u2019s effort, allegedly, via a call from Altman. However, texts revealed in the case suggest Zilis already knew about xAI before the call.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave to resign [from the] openai board btw. [Musk\u2019s] effort has become well known,\u201d Zilis told a friend the day of Altman\u2019s call. \u201cWhen the father of your babies starts a competitive effort and will recruit out of openai there is nothing to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Thursday, lawyers for Musk are expected to call Rosie Campbell\u2014a former OpenAI employee and managing director at the AI consciousness nonprofit Eleos AI\u2014as a witness. They\u2019re also expected to call David Schizer, a former dean of Columbia Law School who specializes in nonprofit law.<\/p>\n

This is an edition of<\/em> Maxwell Zeff\u2019s<\/em><\/a> Model Behavior newsletter<\/strong><\/em><\/a>. Read previous newsletters<\/em> here.<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Save StorySave this storySave StorySave this story A few months before Elon Musk left OpenAI\u2019s board of directors in February 2018, he tried to recruit Sam Altman to join a \u201cworld-class AI lab\u201d within Tesla. Musk went as far as offering the OpenAI CEO a Tesla board seat, according to emails and testimony presented in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50095,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-50094","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}