Mark Zuckerberg texted Elon Musk asking if he could assist him with Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) efforts last year, according to newly released court documents.
The newly unredacted filings are part of an ongoing legal battle between Musk and OpenAI that began in 2024, with the xAI CEO alleging that OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman violated the company’s original mission of developing AI to benefit humanity. In February 2025, Musk submitted an unsolicited $97.4 billion bid to acquire OpenAI and block its conversion into a for-profit entity.
“Looks like DOGE is making progress,” Zuckerberg texted Musk on Feb. 3, 2025, according to an unsealed exhibit. “I’ve got our teams on alert to take down content doxxing or threatening the people on your team. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help.”
Musk reacted with a heart to Zuckerberg’s message and responded, “Are you open to the idea of bidding on the OpenAI IP with me and some others?”
Zuckerberg offered to discuss the matter “live,” and Musk suggested he would call the Meta CEO the next day, the filings show.
The communication shown in the filings indicates a thawing relationship between the two entrepreneurs after a decade-long rivalry. In 2016, Meta contracted Musk’s SpaceX to launch a satellite that would have given internet access to individuals in sub-Saharan Africa, but the rocket exploded. Zuckerberg said he was “deeply disappointed” by the failure. In 2023, Musk offered to fight Zuckerberg in a cage match, which did not materialize.
During the time of the interaction in February 2025, Musk was spearheading DOGE, the special advisory created on President Donald Trump’s first day of his second term to eliminate headcount and contracts to shrink the federal budget. Meta donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund in 2020, marking a positive shift in the relationship between the tech company and the administration. The White House last week appointed Zuckerberg to serve on a tech advisory council.
Musk appeared to have favored Meta’s AI models in some of his DOGE-related work. Wired reported in May 2025, citing internal materials, that DOGE used Meta’s Llama 2 to review and classify email responses from federal workers to the January 2025 “Fork in the Road” email offering deferred resignation to employees opposing the administration’s sweeping workforce changes.
Meta declined Fortune’s request for comment.
The ongoing legal dispute
Court filings from August 2025 indicated Musk approached Zuckerberg about assembling a cadre of investors to finance a takeover of OpenAI. According to the documents, neither Meta nor Zuckerberg signed a letter of intent or made a bid for OpenAI.
According to a statement in the filing, Meta was “spending heavily to develop its own Al capabilities” and has been “offering pay packages of $100 million or more to leading Al researchers and attempting to poach OpenAI employees.”
Meta argued at the time that OpenAI’s request for additional documents was “overly burdensome.”
Altman’s company completed its transition into a more traditional for-profit corporation in October 2025, with Microsoft, its largest external shareholder, gaining a 27% stake in the company and retaining access to its technology through 2032.
In a separate unsealed filing released last week, Musk’s lawyers argued his communications with Zuckerberg should not be included in the litigation.
“Musk’s personal relationships and communications – including with other high-profile individuals – are also tangential and prejudicial,” the lawyers wrote. “Defendants included in their exhibit list for trial, for example, several private exchanges between Musk and Mark Zuckerberg discussing Musk’s political activity and this lawsuit.
“Those recent communications have nothing to do with Musk’s claims and are nothing more than Defendants’ attempt to stoke negative sentiments toward Musk because of his association with Zuckerberg,” they concluded.
