Elon Musk and Shivon Zilis were thrust into view in a federal courtroom in Oakland, California, on Wednesday, where Zilis testified for hours in Musk's lawsuit overOpenAI's shift towards a for profit structureand described how he offered to donate sperm in 2020, leading to the birth of their children. Her evidence ranged from boardroom disputes to intensely private decisions, giving the case an unusually personal edge.

"He wanted everyone around him to have more children."Former OpenAI board member Shivon Zilis testified that Elon Musk offered to be her sperm donor while their relationship was still platonic.https://t.co/dnkAGXpXB7

Zilis was not in court simply because of her relationship with Musk. She has worked across Silicon Valley for more than 15 years, held senior roles at Tesla and Neuralink, joined OpenAI as an adviser in 2016 and later served as a director from 2020 to 2023. That overlap made her a significant witness in a case that has become, at heart, a fight over money, control and the future shape of one of the world's most powerful AI companies.

Zilis told the court that her path to motherhood did not unfold in the way she had once expected. She said she had been dealing with health issues that disrupted what she called a more traditional plan to marry and have children with a romantic partner.

Then, as she explained it, Musk intervened with an offer that was startling in its bluntness and apparently simple in its terms.

Offered To Be "Platonic" Sperm Donor: Shivon Zilis On Relationship With Muskhttps://t.co/T7zKA5mifrpic.twitter.com/slH2YXObM4

'I still really wanted to be a mum and Elon made the offer around that time and I accepted,' she said. She added that Musk had been 'encouraging everyone around him at that time to have kids' and had noticed that she did not have any. 'He offered to make a donation,' she told the court.

There was, she said, no ongoing romance behind that decision. Zilis described a 'one off' romantic encounter with Musk about a decade ago, but said they were not romantically involved in 2020 when he first offered to father her children.

She also said the two agreed to keep his paternity of their first two children 'strictly confidential.' At the time, Musk was not necessarily expected to play an active fatherly role in their lives. That, too, changed. Zilis told the court that he is now an active participant in the lives of their four children and that they spend a few hours each week together as a family.

The personal detail was striking, but it was not the legal centre of gravity. OpenAI's lawyers have suggested that Zilis passed information to Musk after he left the company in 2018, a serious implication given that he was a co founder, an early donor and, by then, an outsider with a direct interest in what OpenAI might become.

Source: International Business Times UK