Musk family
Medh Author
Author
Elon Musk
This section is an excerpt from Elon Musk.[edit]
_(cropped).jpg)
Musk in 2022.jpg)
This article is part of
a series about
Elon Muskshow
Personal
show
Companies
show
Politics
show
In popular culture
show
Related
Elon Reeve Musk (/ˈiːlɒn/ EE-lon; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman known for his key roles in Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter (which he rebranded as X). Since 2025, he has been a senior advisor to United States president Donald Trump and the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk is the wealthiest person in the world; as of March 2025, Forbes estimates his net worth to be $320 billion USD.
Born to a wealthy family in Pretoria, South Africa, Musk emigrated in 1989 to Canada, whose citizenship he had inherited through his mother. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in the U.S. before moving to California to pursue business ventures. In 1995, Musk co-founded the software company Zip2. Following its sale in 1999, he co-founded X.com, an online payment company that later merged to form PayPal, which was acquired by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion. That year, Musk also became a U.S. citizen.
In 2002, Musk founded SpaceX and became its CEO and chief engineer. The company has since led innovations in reusable rockets and commercial spaceflight. In 2004, Musk joined Tesla, Inc. as an early investor, and became its CEO and product architect in 2008; it has become a market leader in electric vehicles. In 2015, he co-founded OpenAI to advance artificial intelligence research, but left its board in 2018. In 2016, Musk co-founded Neuralink, a company focused on brain–computer interfaces, and in 2017 launched the Boring Company, which aims to develop tunnel transportation. Musk was named Time magazine's Person of the Year in 2021. In 2022, he acquired Twitter, implementing significant changes and rebranding it as X in 2023. In January 2025, he was appointed head of Trump's newly created DOGE.
Musk's political activities and views have made him a polarizing figure. He has been criticized for making unscientific and misleading statements, including COVID-19 misinformation and promoting conspiracy theories. His acquisition of Twitter (now X) was controversial due to a subsequent increase in hate speech and the spread of misinformation on the service. He has engaged in political activities in several countries, including as a vocal and financial supporter of Trump. Musk was the largest donor in the 2024 U.S. presidential election and is a supporter of global far-right figures, causes, and political parties.
Relationships and children
Musk has fathered thirteen children, one of whom is deceased, along with an alleged fourteenth child that Musk has not yet acknowledged.[1][2][3] He met his first wife, Canadian author Justine Wilson, while attending Queen's University in Ontario, Canada; they married in 2000.[4] In 2002, their first child Nevada Musk died of sudden infant death syndrome at the age of 10 weeks.[5] After his death, the couple used in vitro fertilization (IVF) to continue their family;[6] they had twins in 2004, followed by triplets in 2006.[6] The couple divorced in 2008 and had shared custody of their children.[7][8]
In 2008, Musk began dating English actress Talulah Riley.[9] They married two years later at Dornoch Cathedral in Scotland.[10][11] In 2012, the couple divorced, before remarrying the following year.[12] After briefly filing for divorce in 2014,[12] Musk finalized a second divorce from Riley in 2016.[13] Musk then dated Amber Heard for several months in 2017;[14] he had reportedly been "pursuing" her since 2012.[15]
In 2018, Musk and Canadian musician Grimes said that they were dating.[16] Grimes gave birth to Musk's seventh child in May 2020.[17][18] In December 2021, Grimes and Musk had a second child together (Musk's tenth child), born via surrogacy.[19] Despite the pregnancy, Musk confirmed reports that the couple were "semi-separated" in September 2021; in an interview with Time in December 2021, he said he was single.[20][21] In March 2022, Grimes said of her relationship with Musk: "I would probably refer to him as my boyfriend, but we're very fluid."[19] Later that month, Grimes tweeted that she and Musk had broken up again.[22] In September 2023 it was reported that the pair had had a third child (Musk's eleventh).[23] In October 2023, Grimes sued Musk over parental rights and custody of their eldest.[24][25][26]
In July 2022, Insider published court documents revealing that Musk had had his eighth and ninth children, twins born via IVF with Shivon Zilis, director of operations and special projects at Neuralink, in November 2021.[27] They were born weeks before Musk and Grimes had their second child via surrogacy in December. The news "raise[d] questions about workplace ethics", given that Zilis directly reported to Musk.[28] Zilis's third child together with Musk (his twelfth child) was born in early 2024 via surrogacy.[29][30] His fourth child with Zilis was born in 2025.[3]
Also in July 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk allegedly had an affair with Nicole Shanahan, the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, in 2021, leading to their divorce the following year.[31] Musk denied the report.[32] Musk also had a relationship with Australian actress Natasha Bassett, who has been described as "an occasional girlfriend".[33] In October 2024, The New York Times reported Musk bought a Texas compound for his children and their mothers,[34] though Musk denied having done so.[35]
On February 14, 2025, Ashley St. Clair, an influencer and author, posted on X claiming to have given birth to Musk's son five months earlier, which media outlets reported as Musk's supposed thirteenth child.[36][37] On February 22, 2025, it was reported that St Clair had filed for sole custody of her five-month-old son and for Musk to be recognised as the child's father.[38][39]
Vivian Wilson
This section is an excerpt from Vivian Wilson.[edit]
Vivian Jenna Wilson[40] (born April 15, 2004) is the eldest living child of Elon Musk and Justine Musk. She came out as a trans woman in 2020. Her relationship with her father has been contentious. In 2025, Wilson was featured on the cover of Teen Vogue.
X Æ A-Xii Musk.jpg)
Elon and X Æ A-Xii Musk, in the Oval Office, February 2025
X Æ A-Xii Musk (/ˈɛks eɪ.aɪ eɪ twɛlv/ or /ˈɛks æʃ eɪ twɛlv/[41]) was born in May 2020, the eldest child of Elon Musk and Grimes.[17][18] Musk and Grimes originally gave the baby the name "X Æ A-12", which would have violated California regulations as it contained characters (Arabic numerals) that are not in the modern English alphabet.[42][43] They then changed it to "X Æ A-Xii".[44][45] They have received criticism for choosing a name perceived to be impractical and difficult to pronounce.[46]
Elon Musk has taken X Æ A-Xii to multiple official events in D.C during Trump's second term in office.[47]
Errol Musk
Main article: Errol Musk
Errol Graham Musk is a South African politician and businessman,[48] who was elected as an independent to represent Sunnyside on the Pretoria City Council in 1972.[49]
Musk had a lucrative engineering business which took on "large projects such as office buildings, retail complexes, residential subdivisions, and an air force base." He also owned an auto parts store, at least half a share in an emerald mine, and even "one of the biggest houses in Pretoria".[50][51] He was married to Maye Musk from 1970 to 1979.[52][51]
Maye's book recalls that at the time of the divorce, he owned two homes, a yacht, a plane, five luxury cars, and a truck.[53]
In the early 1990s, Errol, then aged 45, married Heide Bezuidenhout, a 25-year old he described as "one of the best looking women I've ever seen in my life".[54] They had two children.[55] Jana Bezuidenhout, who later became his romantic partner, was his stepdaughter from that marriage, four years old at the time Errol became her stepfather.[55][56]
Errol Musk's mother, Cora Amelia Robinson, was English from Liverpool, and his father, Walter Henry James Musk, was mostly English-South African.[57][58]
Maye Musk
Main article: Maye Musk
Maye Musk in 2023
Maye Musk (née Haldeman; born April 19, 1948)[59] is a model, dietitian and author.[60][61] She has been a model for 50 years, appearing on the covers of magazines, including a Time magazine health edition, Women's Day, international editions of Vogue, and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. She is the mother of Elon Musk, Kimbal Musk and Tosca Musk.[62] She holds Canadian, South African, and American citizenship. She is a registered dietitian. She published her memoir, A Woman Makes a Plan in 2019.
Joshua Haldeman
Main article: Joshua N. Haldeman
Haldeman was an American-born Canadian chiropractor and political activist who, in the early days of formalized apartheid, moved to South Africa.[63] Prior to the move, Haldeman headed the Canadian branch of Technocracy movement and ran for the Parliament of Canada on the Social Credit Party ticket.[64][65] Over the course of his life, he publicly expressed racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-democratic views, promoted a number of conspiracy theories, and was a supporter of South Africa's apartheid system.[66]
The Haldeman couple spent time searching for the Lost City of the Kalahari by plane.[67] Haldeman's mother Almeda Jane (Norman) Haldeman was the first recorded chiropractor in Canada.[66]