While Shivon Zilis shared the news of her breakup with Elon Musk, the tech billionaire went on a posting spree on X.
Zilis — an executive at Musk’s tech company Neuralink and the mother of four of his children — posted on X at 10:07 a.m. ET, sharing a lengthy explanation surrounding the breakup.
“It’s hard to go from in love to let go in a week with no warning, but that’s just how it is sometimes,” Zilis began.
Musk, meanwhile, neither responded to Zilis’s post nor wrote one of his own about the split.
Instead, he posted multiple times about his companies SpaceX, Starlink, and Tesla, while also welcoming Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison to X — the social media platform he bought for $44 billion in 2022.
It’s hard to go from in love to let go in a week with no warning, but that’s just how it is sometimes 🤷🏻♀️
— Shivon Zilis (@shivon) October 2, 2026
I feel happy that I got to show Elon how it feels to be deeply understood, nurtured, and peacefully loved with stability and gentleness. Given the tumultuous nature of his… https://t.co/HAOfjxrIig pic.twitter.com/lgL0GVzD2R
At 11:41 a.m. ET, Musk congratulated Ellison on the company’s new name post-merger, and seemingly for joining the social media platform.
Musk then commended the SpaceX team at 2:06 p.m. on their recent series of human spaceflight launches.
At 3 p.m. he posted about Tesla, which was quickly followed up by a post eight minutes later about Starlink.
Those posts were followed by three others in rapid succession about SpaceX and Tesla.
And while Musk was posting about his companies, Zilis was gaining traction for her statement and the private text messages she shared, providing new insight into her relationship with the tech billionaire.
Musk and Zilis largely kept details of their romance under wraps until earlier this year when Zilis revealed during the OpenAI trial that sometime after she joined the tech company in 2016, she had a romantic “one-off” with Musk.
The court heard how Musk “offered to make a donation” in a “platonic sperm donor” arrangement after Zilis decided she wanted to become a single mother – an arrangement that later developed into a romantic partnership.
Great work by the @SpaceX team! https://t.co/FQ6aEM53xl
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 2, 2026
The pair welcomed twins in 2021, a third child in 2024, and a fourth in 2025.
Musk has 14 known children with four different women, according to People. He has not yet spoken out about the breakup.
The Independent has reached out to Musk for comment.
Zilis wrote in her statement shared to X: “I loved being that counterbalancing place of safety, sense of calm, and love — and delighted in bringing a smile back to his face when he was down. I will miss him dearly.”
She added that there is “a lot of loss, but luckily we created four beautiful little loves of my life,” referring to their children.
“I do hope and pray he and I can be great friends and coparents,” she continued. “I’m hurting, but care deeply about E and will always be cheering for his happiness. God speed, Elon, the world is lucky to have you.”
