Former OpenAI board member says Elon Musk offered her sperm donations

An important development from the financial markets: Former OpenAI board member says Elon Musk offered her sperm donations11 minutes ago Share Save Add as preferred on GoogleLily Jamali ,North America Technology correspondentandKali Hays ,Technology reporterBloomberg via Getty ImagesShivon Zilis arrives at the trial in Oakland, California on 6 MayA former OpenAI board member has explained how her unconventional personal relationship with Elon Musk evolved into having four of his children. Shivon Zilis testified in a federal courtroom in Oakland, California for hours on Wednesday as part of Musk's lawsuit trying to reverse OpenAI's change to a for-profit company. The focus of Zilis's appearance was her direct involvement in early talks with Musk around the company becoming a for-profit, but also how she worked for and became involved with Musk as she advised OpenAI.

"I still really wanted to be a mum and Elon made the offer around that time and I accepted," she said, explaining Musk had offered to donate sperm. " was encouraging everyone around him at that time to have kids and he'd noticed I did not. He offered to make a donation," Zilis said.

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via Getty ImagesZilis and Musk attended the wedding of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino at Mar-a-Lago in FebruaryZilis has worked as a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley for over 15 years and held executive positions at Musk's car company, Tesla, and his neurotechnology firm Neuralink. She joined OpenAI as a baord member in 2016, not long after it was founded, a position through which she said on Wednesday is how she first met Musk. Given Zilis's role across Musk's companies and OpenAI, she is an important witness in the trial.

OpenAI lawyers have suggested that she funnelled information about OpenAI to Musk after he in 2018 left the AI company, which he co-founded and made early donations to. Zilis said she had a "one-off" romance with Musk about a decade ago but was not romantically involved with Musk around 2020, when Musk made the offer to father her children. She explained she had been struggling with certain health issues which had changed her initial plans to follow a more traditional personal path of getting married and having children with a romantic partner.

Zilis's initial plan for Musk's role in the lives of the first two children she had by him was not necessarily as an active father, and the two had agreed to keep his paternity "strictly confidential. " Today, Musk is an active participant in the lives of his now four children with Zilis, she said, explaining that they spend "a few hours a week" together as a family. But Zilis said that initial confidentiality agreement with Musk is why she did not initially disclose to OpenAI's chief executive Sam Altman that twins she gave birth to in 2021 were fathered by Musk.

She told Altman that Musk was the father the following year, when she learned a Business Insider report on Musk's paternity of the children was imminent.

Financial markets are tracking the development closely as investors assess the likely impact.