The unflattering secrets revealed so far in Elon Musk’s latest legal feud
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, will face off in court Monday in a lawsuit alleging that Musk, Altman and others enriched themselves by betraying the artificial intelligence company’s founding mission.
The bitter legal conflict between the two technology giants is teasing Silicon Valley VIPs and paving the way for the industry’s most powerful circles.
Hundreds of court filings have revealed embarrassing texts, emails or private diary entries from Musk, Altman, other OpenAI founders and other public figures. These include Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg privately offering to use his social platforms to further Musk’s interests, Musk insulting Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos (twice), and a magazine magazine in which a major MAGA donor mused about becoming a billionaire, according to filings. (Bezos owns The Washington Post; OpenAI has a content partnership with The Post.)
Corporate litigation attorney Andrew Stoltmann, who has been following the case closely and is not involved in the case, predicted fireworks in the federal courtroom in Oakland, California. “We’re about to witness the Hindenburg landing on the deck of the Titanic; we know it’s going to be crazy and disgusting.”
Musk and Altman co-founded OpenAI in 2015, but Musk left the company in an acrimonious split in 2018. His lawsuit, first filed in 2024, alleges that OpenAI has broken its founding promise to openly share its technology with the world as a nonprofit AI research laboratory. Musk argues that Altman and another OpenAI co-founder, Greg Brockman, conspired to enrich themselves at Musk’s expense and is asking the court to remove them from their leadership positions and make OpenAI a fully nonprofit organization.
OpenAI said Musk was simply trying to take on a rival to his own AI company, xAI. An OpenAI spokesperson referred The Post to a website where comments about the dispute were posted. “Motivated by jealousy, regret of leaving OpenAI, and a desire to derail a rival AI company, Elon spent years harassing OpenAI through baseless lawsuits and public attacks,” the site says.
Musk and his attorney did not respond to requests for comment. OpenAI has refused to make Altman or Brockman available.
Here are five statements or questions that emerged from the Post review of court records.
What did Elon Musk do at Burning Man in 2017?
Held annually in the Nevada desert, the festival is a pilgrimage for counterculture types and Silicon Valley’s elite. OpenAI’s lawyers questioned Musk about his activities during Burning Man in 2017, which they said coincided with intense negotiations between him, Altman, Brockman and others about changing OpenAI’s nonprofit status.
OpenAI said Musk may not fully remember the discussions. In a deposition in September, Musk was repeatedly asked about “rhino ketamine,” a mixture of the hallucinogenic and anesthetic drug ketamine and amphetamine stimulants.
Musk stated that he did not know what rhino ketamine was and did not remember using it at the event. He previously admitted to using ketamine, which he said was prescribed to him to treat depression.
Musk’s lawyers said asking questions about Burning Man and drugs would be “provocative” and “irrelevant” and asked for those subjects to be removed from the hearing. Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, the federal judge overseeing the case, ruled last month that OpenAI could not raise the issue of ketamine in court but that Burning Man was fair game.
“Musk’s attendance at Burning Man in 2017 was related to his attention to negotiations with OpenAI that allegedly took place during the same period,” he wrote. Gonzalez Rogers wrote that “alleged memory loss” from ketamine use may be relevant, but said OpenAI lawyers failed to point to evidence suggesting Musk used the drug.
Musk’s alleged secret agent inside OpenAI was also the mother of his four children
Shivon Zilis is a long-time ally of Musk and has worked at many of his companies. In his deposition, Altman said he acted as an “Elon whisperer” for OpenAI and served on the company’s board of directors from 2020 to 2023. Documents in the case include text messages in which the two discussed how Zilis could pass information from within OpenAI to Musk.
OpenAI says in the lawsuit that Zilis secretly provided information to Musk at OpenAI’s expense, supporting the claim that Altman and others changed the structure of the startup against Musk’s wishes.
In 2022, it was publicly announced that Zilis and Musk had had twin babies together the previous year. In his statement in the case, Zilis said that the two had a short love affair around 2016. “They now have four children and are in a romantic relationship,” she said.
OpenAI argues that Zilis’ credibility is undermined by what the company says is a romantic relationship and children with Musk that it claims were “concealed” from OpenAI officials.
Zilis did not respond to a request for comment.
Among the documents cited by OpenAI is a message exchange between Musk and Zilis just before he left the OpenAI board in 2018. Zilis asked Musk whether he should remain “close and friendly” with OpenAI to “keep information flowing.” (A 2023 thread in court files also showed Musk saved as “Schrödinger’s Cat” on Zilis’ phone. Musk seems to enjoy references to this geeky thought experiment.)
Gonzalez Rogers ruled last month that Musk’s relationship with Zilis was “highly relevant to Zilis’ credibility and Zilis’ role as a conduit between Musk and OpenAI.”
Mark Zuckerberg privately offered help and information to Musk
Zuckerberg and Musk have been verbally sparring for years and have even agreed to a physical fight in 2023. (This did not happen.)
But messages in court records revealed that Zuckerberg contacted Musk several times to offer help or information. This could fit a pattern seen in the history of Musk’s legal battles: Even the rich and powerful are giving in to him.
In February 2025, following a series of news stories about Musk’s federal government efficiency project, DOGE, disclosing the names of several employees, Musk publicly complained that such disclosures could constitute a crime.
Zuckerberg messaged Musk, saying Meta teams were “on alert” to remove posts that “contain doxxing or threats.” Zuckerberg said Musk should let him know “anything I can do to help.”
Zuckerberg has faced criticism since the text was announced in March. Facebook and Instagram have promised to give users a freer hand over content moderation, and skeptics said last year that Musk had complained about online activity protected by the First Amendment. A spokesperson for Meta declined to comment on behalf of the company or Zuckerberg.
While executives were fighting, Altman praised Musk.
In a 2023 text exchange after Musk shared his frustrations with OpenAI, Altman told Musk he was “my hero” and said he would not “hurt” Tesla by poaching its employees. Around the same time, Altman asked Zilis if he should “tweet something nice about Elon” because Altman said he felt slighted because Musk was excluded from OpenAI’s founding photo.
Musk thinks Jeff Bezos is a ‘tool’
OpenAI has long been hungry for computing horsepower to fuel its AI ambitions, and filings in the case show Musk or Altman repeatedly pressing other tech companies for free or discounted AI computing power.
In a 2016 email exchange between Musk and Altman about such a negotiation, Musk said he would prefer to rely on the computing power of Microsoft rather than Amazon because Musk believed Bezos was “a bit of a tool” and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was not.
OpenAI ultimately chose Microsoft, which is also one of OpenAI’s major investors and a defendant in Musk’s lawsuit.
Musk has long sparred with Bezos over dueling space projects. In a September deposition, Musk doubled down on his billionaire friend’s “vehicle” criticism when asked about it. “It could be, you know,” Musk replied, adding: “There is a way out for all of us.”
Bezos’ spokesman did not make any comment on the issue. A Microsoft spokesperson cited a court filing that said the company’s investments in OpenAI “help fund one of the world’s largest nonprofits” and are “essential for OpenAI to continue its mission.” The spokesperson declined to comment on the Musk email.
Secret diary of a Trump-supporting executive at the center of the case
Brockman, who started as OpenAI’s chief technology officer and is now its president, wrote notes to himself about whether he should side with Musk or Altman during the battle over who would control OpenAI.
Brockman’s personal notes are a key part of Musk’s case; In 2017, Brockman described his desire to make personal wealth from then-nonprofit organization OpenAI, asking himself in the notes: “What will get me to $1 billion financially?” he allegedly asked.
In his testimony last year, Brockman said he wrote that line while considering what would motivate him financially if OpenAI transitioned to a for-profit business. He said his initial motivation is still to ensure that OpenAI’s mission can continue. In her posts about
Brockman and his wife became wealthy enough to be among the biggest donors to MAGA Inc., a super PAC aligned with President Donald Trump, and another fund that opposes artificial intelligence regulations, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
In another snippet from his diary, Brockman appears to think it would be inappropriate to turn the company into a for-profit company without involving Musk. “It would be wrong to steal his nonprofit from him. … That would be pretty morally bankrupt. And he’s really not stupid.”
Documents, text exchanges, and journal entry from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in Oakland.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article included an image in which the order of text messages between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk was changed. Musk texted: “Are you open to the idea of bidding with me and others for the OpenAI IP?” To which Zuckerberg responded: “Do you want to discuss it live?” The picture has been corrected.
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