Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has confirmed that he welcomed his third child with Neuralink director Shivon Zilis earlier this year, making him a father to at least 12 children. Half of the $210-billion man’s kids were born in the past five years. His children include his three with Zillis, three with Canadian popstar Grimes, and five with his ex-wife Justine Wilson. Musk is a vocal “pronatalist” who has long claimed that the population is in decline and previously joked about helping the underpopulation crisis. While world fertility rates are declining, the UN projects that the global population will hit 10 billion by the end of the century.
Musk and his first wife, Justine Wilson, had twins Griffin and Vivian in 2004 after the couple had a son named Nevada in 2002 who died at just 10 weeks old from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS. Musk has rarely mentioned this loss, but he expressed his sympathy in an email chain with the father of an 18-year-old boy who died in a fiery Tesla crash in 2018. Vivian, Musk’s child with Wilson, came out as transgender in 2022 and legally changed her name from Xavier Musk, including taking her mother’s last name. In court, Vivian said she “no longer lives with or wishes to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.
Five years after their twins were born, the couple had triplet boys, Kai, Saxon and Damian, in 2006 using in vitro fertilization (IVF. Musk and Wilson divorced in 2008. Following his divorce from Wilson, Musk married actor Talulah Riley in 2010. The pair divorced in 2012, remarried in 2013, and divorced for a final time in 2016. They never had children together.
Musk and the “Oblivion” singer’s first son, X Æ A-Xii, was born in May 2020. In December 2021, the couple quietly welcomed their daughter, Exa Dark Sideræl via surrogate. Their son, originally named X Æ A-12, had to have his name legally changed to follow California laws on birth certificates, though his parents simply refer to him as “X.” His name is pronounced “X Ash A Twelve,” Musk explained on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast just after his birth, giving props to Grimes for coming up with the majority of the name.
The couple split in September 2021 before getting back together around the time of the birth of their daughter, Exa Dark Sideræl, whose name is pronounced “Plz respect that at this time,” she added. In September 2023, Grimes filed a court petition to establish parental rights of their three children following her split with Musk.
In November 2021, Musk and Shivon Zilis welcomed twins Strider and Azure. The couple petitioned a Texas court to allow the children to “have their father’s last name and contain their mother’s last name as part of their middle name,” Business Insider reported in 2022.
The pair welcomed their third child—whose name was not released—sometime earlier this year, it was revealed on Saturday. While the public only just learned of the baby’s birth, Musk told Page Six on Sunday that the child was no secret to their friends and family. As for ‘secretly fathered,’ that is also false,” he says. All our friends and family know. Failure to issue a press release, which would be bizarre, does not mean ‘secret.’” Musk and Zilis have not shared the sex of the baby.
