Elon Musk has become the world's most influential chief executive, and with that position have come in-depth surveillance and scrutiny of his private life as well as his professional activities.
Imagine a double-page spread from a newspaper. On the left are articles about the businesses Musk leads: Tesla (TSLA), SpaceX, Boring Co. and Neuralink. Add to those the ups and downs of the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter (TWTR) that he has proposed and wants to abandon.
The coverage on the left is mainly the Twitter saga, which has moved to the courts from the negotiating table. Musk has said he wants to quit the deal because Twitter lied about the number of spam bots, or fake accounts, on the platform. Twitter is trying to force him to close the deal. Twitter vs. Musk will take place in October.
Then there's Tesla, the manufacturer of top-tier electric vehicles, which like its rivals faces continuing supply-chain disruptions caused by the covid-19 pandemic and soaring prices of raw materials.
Regulators also are investigating crashes involving Tesla's driver-assistance system Autopilot/FSD. And Tesla has a very busy product roadmap, with production starting in 2023 for the highly anticipated Cybertruck, the next-generation Roadster and the Tesla Semi. The firm has also promised to market Optimus, its first humanoid robot, next year.
The right-hand page is devoted entirely to stories about Musk, the celebrity.
Musk Shirtless
Obviously, the coverage here includes social events such as the billionaire's participation in the star-studded Met Gala.
There's Musk expansion of his family. At the end of 2021, he and his ex-girlfriend, the Canadian singer Grimes, welcomed a girl. And the billionaire recently confirmed that he had twins in November with Shivon Zilis, a senior executive at Neuralink, his company specializing in artificial intelligence. The arrival of the twins brings the number of Musk's children to nine.
More recently were photos of the billionaire on a yacht in Greece, where he appears shirtless. He also joked about it on Twitter, his favorite communication channel.
"My calves are bigger tho," Musk commented on July 19.
Musk Allegedly Had an Affair With the Wife of a Google Co-Founder
New revelations about Musk's private life have been made by The Wall Street Journal. According to the paper, Musk allegedly had an affair with Nicole Shanahan, the wife of Google (GOOGL) Co-Founder Sergey Brin, last December in Miami.
This brief alleged affair ended the friendship between the tech tycoon and Brin, the newspaper reports, citing people familiar with the matter.
Brin, who filed for divorce last January, told his advisers to sell all his personal investments in Musk's businesses, the WSJ said. Brin, 48, had been a supporter of Tesla amid the financial crisis in 2008. The newspaper does not say whether Brin's stakes in Musk's companies have been sold and how much they amount to.
Shanahan, who is an attorney, is asking for $1 billion in the divorce despite there being a prenup, the WSJ reports.
Hours after the WSJ article was published, the billionaire took to Twitter, denying he ever had an affair with Shanahan and claiming the article is a "character assassination." He also says he's still friends with Brin.
'Hit Pieces'
"This is total bs," Musk reacted on Twitter on July 24. "Sergey and I are friends and were at a party together last night! I’ve only seen Nicole twice in three years, both times with many other people around. Nothing romantic."
"Wow then the @wsj journal just ran the craziest hit piece ever. Shameless. 🤦🏻♂️," commented a Twitter user.
"WSJ has run so many bs hit pieces on me and Tesla I’ve lost count! It’s embarrassing for them, frankly.," the billionaire responded. "They once wrote an article saying FBI was about to arrest me, so I called FBI to ask what’s up and they said WSJ article was total bs. Just more shortseller fud."
"Is there anything we can do?" then asked another user.
"Call them out on it, I guess. WSJ is supposed to have a high standard for journalism and, right now, they are way sub tabloid," Musk said. "WSJ should be running stories that actually matter to their readers and have solid factual basis, not third-party random hearsay."
"We are confident in our sourcing, and we stand by our reporting," a WSJ spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.
"The character assassination attacks have reached a new level this year, but the articles are all nothing-burgers. I work crazy hours, so there just isn’t much time for shenanigans," Musk also said. "None of the key people involved in these alleged wrongdoings were even interviewed!"
He received support from his mother, Maye Musk, who says the Journal fabricated the story.
".@WSJ It wasn’t alleged, you made it up. As always. Who is paying you to lie this time?" Maye wrote on Twitter.
Musk is the world's richest man, with a fortune estimated at $242 billion by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, while Brin is the eighth richest, with a personal fortune pegged at $94.6 billion.
