Elon Musk’s first wife, Justine Musk, has disputed the Twitter boss’s account of their first-born’s death, claiming that it was her — and not him — who was holding their 10-week-old son in her arms as he was taken off life support.
After Mr Musk used their son Nevada Alexander’s death to explain his reasoning for keeping Sandy Hook denier Alex Jones off the social media site, Justine Musk swooped in and disputed his claim that their son died in his arms.
Mr Musk reinstated Donald Trump’s Twitter account but has refused to reinstate conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s account.
And in response to a question from author Sam Harris on whether he would also lift the ban for Mr Jones, the tech billionaire said that the right-wing radio host’s pushing of the Sandy Hook conspiracy theory meant that the ban would remain in place.
“My firstborn child died in my arms,” Mr Musk wrote on Twitter.
“I felt his last heartbeat. I have no mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics or fame.”
A follower quote-tweeted this and asked Mr Musk if the death of Nevada was from SIDS [Sudden infant death syndrome].
The tech billionaire’s ex-wife responded to the user and wrote: “A SIDS-related incident that put him on life support. He was declared brain-dead. And not that it matters to anyone except me, because it is one of the most sacred and defining moments of my life, but I was the one who was holding him.”
Justine Musk shares five children with the tech CEO.
Mr Jones gained notoriety after claiming that family members of children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting were “crisis actors” hired in a ploy to enact greater gun control in the US.
The Infowars host and his company has been ordered to pay $1.44bn in damages to the families for promoting the false conspiracy theory, following lawsuits in Texas and Connecticut.
Mr Jones was also permanently banned from several major tech platforms, including Facebook and YouTube, as a result of violating their terms of service.
Twitter said in 2018 that the ban was a result of Mr Jones breaching the company’s abusive behaviour policy.
Last year in October, Ms Musk wrote about the divorce from the Tesla owner in Marie Claire. About their son’s death, she wrote: “He spent three days on life support in a hospital in Orange County before we made the decision to take him off it. I held him in my arms when he died.”
She continued: “Elon made it clear that he did not want to talk about Nevada’s death. I didn’t understand this, just as he didn’t understand why I grieved openly, which he regarded as ‘emotionally manipulative’. I buried my feelings instead, coping with Nevada’s death by making my first visit to an IVF clinic less than two months later.”
