Key point: A federal court filing shows Sam Altman texted Shivon Zilis on Feb. 9, 2023 to ask whether he should post praise of Elon Musk on X, days before he publicly did so. The message (Exhibit 35) was included in Musk's lawsuit against Altman and OpenAI and suggests the Feb. 13 post was planned after private consultation. The filings also include earlier 2016–2017 exchanges that document recurring tensions over OpenAI's direction and funding.
Altman's Private Olive Branch: Text Shows He Asked Elon Musk Confidante Before Praising Musk on X
Key point: A federal court filing shows Sam Altman texted Shivon Zilis on Feb. 9, 2023 to ask whether he should post praise of Elon Musk on X, days before he publicly did so. The message (Exhibit 35) was included in Musk's lawsuit against Altman and OpenAI and suggests the Feb. 13 post was planned after private consultation. The filings also include earlier 2016–2017 exchanges that document recurring tensions over OpenAI's direction and funding.
03:52 PM, 11/10/2025Technology
Court filing reveals private outreach before public praise
A recently filed federal court document shows that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman privately messaged Shivon Zilis — a close confidante of Elon Musk — on February 9, 2023 to ask whether he should post a complimentary message about Musk on X (formerly Twitter). The text was produced as evidence in Musk's lawsuit against Altman and OpenAI and entered as Exhibit 35.
"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,"
Less than a week later Altman posted on X: "society underestimates how much it owes elon for raising the collective ambition level at a time when optimism for the future was receding." The newly disclosed message suggests that Altman's post followed private consultation rather than being wholly spontaneous.
Context and timeline
The exchange is part of a larger collection of emails, depositions and text threads submitted by Musk's lawyers to argue that OpenAI departed from its original nonprofit mission. The filings include earlier communications between Musk and OpenAI cofounders from 2016 and 2017 that reflect recurring tensions over the organization's direction.
In one 2017 exchange (filed as Exhibit 41), Musk wrote: "Guys, I've had enough. This is the final straw... I will no longer fund OpenAI until you have made a firm commitment to stay or I'm just being a fool who is essentially providing free funding for you to create a startup." Altman replied the next day: "I remain enthusiastic about the non-profit structure!"
Those disputes culminated in Musk resigning from OpenAI's board in 2018. He later launched his own AI venture, xAI, and has publicly criticized OpenAI's commercial moves. The Zilis message and related exhibits are part of the ongoing case in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
Who is Shivon Zilis?
Zilis — who has been described in filings as having close personal and professional ties to Musk and who worked on operations and special projects at Neuralink — provided communications that were produced by her legal team and entered into evidence as Exhibit 35.
Taken together, the filings give a rare look at private efforts to manage a fraught public relationship between two of Silicon Valley's most prominent figures as they navigated the high-stakes development of artificial intelligence.