Elon Musk is officially a father of nine. On Wednesday 6 July, it was reported that the billionaire businessman quietly welcomed a set of twins last November with high-ranking executive, Shivon Zilis.
While the Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder is known for being the richest man in the world, Musk has also had his fair share of public romances, divorces, and has even been at the center of his ex-girlfriend’s historic defamation trial.
Here is a timeline of Elon Musk’s relationship history:
In 2000, Musk married his first wife, Canadian author Justine Wilson. Musk met Wilson while the two were students at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. In 2002, the former couple welcomed their first child, Nevada Alexander Musk, who died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome at 10 weeks old.
After losing their firstborn, Wilson turned to IVF treatment to grow their family. “Elon made it clear that he did not want to talk about Nevada’s death,” Wilson wrote in a 2010 personal essay published in Marie Claire. “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. Elon and I planned to get pregnant again as swiftly as possible. Within the next five years, I gave birth to twins, then triplets,” she said.
In April 2022, one of Musk’s now 18-year-old twins came out as transgender when she filed a request to change her name and gender identity, as she no longer wished “to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form”. According to a TMZ report, Musk’s daughter has changed her name to Vivian Jenna Wilson, taking on her mother’s maiden name.
In her essay for Marie Claire, Wilson recalled that six weeks after Musk filed for divorce, he texted her to say he was engaged to “a gorgeous British actress in her early 20s,” Talulah Riley.
Riley, who played Mary Bennet in the 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, was married to Musk twice – first from 2010 to 2012, and again from 2013 to 2016. The two never had children together.
In an interview with The Independent, Riley said of the pair’s decision to remarry: “Obviously I understand it looks strange. But that logic made sense at the time.”
“I suppose the reason to get remarried was just because it felt silly to be together unmarried after having been married,” she said. “You know, it’s like a habit. We were saying, ‘This is my husband.’ ‘This is my wife.’ ‘Oh, wait, no, we’re not that anymore. We better be that again.’”
Riley – who is now dating her Pistol co-star Thomas Brodie-Sangster – said she shares a “very deep love and connection” with Musk, adding that the two “are in a happy place now” and she has “the utmost love for him.”
The same year he ended his relationship with Riley, Musk began dating Amber Heard shortly after her divorce from Johnny Depp. The Aquaman actor recently described the moment she met Musk at the 2016 Met Gala, after her then-husband Depp had stood her up.
“I didn’t recognise him at first. We started talking and he had reminded me that we had met once before,” Heard testified during her multi-million dollar defamation trial against Depp. “He seemed like a real gentleman. He was really nice.”
Musk was initially thought to be a witness in the trial, but the Tesla boss didn’t end up taking the stand.
After ending his relationship with Heard in February 2018, Musk moved on to Canadian singer Grimes – whose real name is Claire Boucher. According to Vanity Fair, Grimes and Musk first met in 2018 when the SpaceX founder slid into her DMs. Shortly after, the two debuted their romance when they walked the Met Gala red carpet in 2018.
In January 2020, the Canadian singer revealed on Instagram that she was pregnant, but did not confirm if Musk was the father until March. In May of that year, Grimes gave birth to their son X AE A-XII. Grimes took to Twitter to share the meaning behind their baby’s name: “X, the unknown variable. Æ, my elven spelling of Ai (love &/or Artificial intelligence). A-12 = precursor to SR-17 (our favorite aircraft). No weapons, no defenses, just speed. Great in battle, but non-violent”.
In September 2021, Musk revealed to Page Six that he and Grimes have “semi-separated” due to conflicting schedules and locations. “We are semi-separated but still love each other, see each other frequently and are on great terms,” he said.
However, the pair welcomed a second child together in December 2021, a daughter named Exa Dark Sideræl Musk via surrogate. Grimes explained to Vanity Fair that the two have a fluid and inexplicable partnership, but clarified later on that the two have broken up since welcoming their daughter, saying “he’s my best friend and the love of my life,” she tweeted.
It seemed that Musk had moved on from Grimes when it was announced earlier this year that he was dating Australian actress Natasha Bassett. The 27-year-old actress, who stars in the 2022 biopic Elvis, was most recently spotted with Musk when the two spent Memorial Day weekend in St Tropez.
It’s unclear whether the two are still an item after news broke that Musk had fathered a set of twins with 36-year-old Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis in November 2021 -– mere weeks before the billionaire welcomed his second child with Grimes.
According to court documents obtained by Business Insider, Musk and Zilis filed a petition in April to change the twins’ name to “have their father’s last name” and contain part of their mother’s last name. A Texas court approved the request in May. The documents also show the pair listed the same home address in Austin, Texas, where Tesla is based.
Zilis, a Yale-educated artificial intelligence specialist, is currently the director of operations and special projects at Neuralink, a Musk-led firm which designs computer implants to allow people’s brains to control electronic devices.
