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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman privately texted Shivon Zilis, one of Elon Musk's closest confidantes, to ask whether he should post a complimentary message about Musk on X — days before he did just that, according to a newly filed court document.
The message, disclosed in Musk's case against Altman and OpenAI and filed in federal court last Friday, shows Altman reaching out to Zilis on February 9, 2023, seeking advice on whether to publicly praise Musk.
"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," Altman wrote, according to the document.
Less than a week later, Altman seemed to enact this, posting 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."
A glimpse behind the message
The message sheds light on how Altman tried to repair his relationship with Musk, who had grown increasingly critical of OpenAI — the company the two helped launch in 2015 with a shared mission to develop artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity.
It suggests that Altman sought to smooth things over by publicly acknowledging Musk's early role in the company.
Zilis, who reportedly has four children with Musk, has long served as one of Musk's most trusted lieutenants, working as director of operations and special projects at Neuralink. Her communications were produced as evidence by her legal team and entered as Exhibit 35 in the filing.
This message was among dozens of emails, depositions, and text threads submitted by Musk's lawyers to support his argument that OpenAI abandoned its founding mission of developing artificial general intelligence for the benefit of humanity.
Old scars
Court documents show that years before Altman's conciliatory post on X, he and Musk had already clashed over OpenAI's direction.
Emails from February 2016, shared in the court documents, suggest that Musk was deeply involved in the company's operations — messaging cofounders about meeting regularly and warning that competitors were "playing the Super Bowl and we are playing the Puppy Bowl."
But by September 2017, frustration had boiled over.
In one exchange filed as Exhibit 41, Musk said: "Guys, I've had enough. This is the final straw. Either go do something on your own or continue with OpenAI as a nonprofit. 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 responded the next day: "I remain enthusiastic about the non-profit structure!"
That back-and-forth — Altman placating, Musk erupting — would become a pattern.
Six years later, his text to Zilis reads almost like a reprise of those earlier emails: another private effort to soothe a public feud.
From private message to public praise
Altman's February 13 post on X was widely interpreted as an olive branch toward Musk, who by then had begun publicly criticizing OpenAI's commercial turn.
However, the newly revealed message suggests that the post was less spontaneous than it appeared — a calculated gesture that was shaped behind the scenes.
The Musk v. Altman filings trace years of strained communication between the two founders. Musk resigned from OpenAI's board in 2018, five years later launching xAI, his own AI company, and repeatedly accusing OpenAI of betraying its nonprofit roots.
Neither Altman, Zilis, nor lawyers for Musk immediately responded to requests for comment on the message.
The case, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, is ongoing.
The latest filings — including those from the Zilis message — offer a rare glimpse into how two of Silicon Valley's most influential figures navigated, and at times massaged, their uneasy relationship in the high-stakes world of artificial intelligence.
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