I thought having 3 kids was a handful, but I’ve got nothing on Elon Musk.
It’s a good job he’s a billionaire. With fourteen children to four different women, he needs to be just to keep on top of their school uniforms.
How does anyone, even a man with the resources of Mr Musk, effectively parent fourteen kids? And what kind of family dynamics exist in such an unconventional setup?
As you might expect, it isn’t all happy families in Elon Musk’s life. In fact, his relationship with some of his offspring and their mothers is fractured, and that’s putting it politely. Sadly for the kids, having such a famous Dad means many of their familial issues are public knowledge, from estrangements to social media spats with his exes.
He didn’t become a father until he was 31, and he was already a multi-millionaire by then. Once he got started, though, he averaged a kid every couple of years.
Here is everything we know about Elon Musk’s children, and their mothers.
Children with Justine Wilson
Elon Musk’s first wife was Justine Wilson, whom he married in 2000. They were both in their late twenties, and became parent shortly afterwards.
Justine is a Canadian author, and the two met at University in the 1990s.
Life was going very well for them both. They were rich, successful, happily married, and about to become parents. However, their journey into parenthood would start with a tragedy.
- Nevada Alexander Musk, May 18th, 2002 – Justine and Elon’s first child, a beautiful baby boy, tragically died at just 10 weeks old. It was a case of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, every parent’s worst nightmare. Justine has spoken about it since, saying Nevada went down for a nap and just never woke up. It seems like Elon never really dealt with it. He didn’t want to talk about it which created emotional distance between him and his wife. However, in emails between Musk and a man who’s son died when he crashed his Tesla, the billionaire describes how he has also lost a son, and felt Nevada’s last heartbeat as he held him in his arms.
- Griffin Musk, April 15th, 2004 – Griffin is a twin, born via IVF. Incredibly, Justine started the IVF just weeks after the loss of her first child. Griffin has kept a very low profile. There are lots of rumours about him, but all anyone really knows is that he attended university.
- Xavier Musk/Vivian Jenna Wilson, April 15th, 2004 – The twin brother of Griffin, Vivian was born as Xavier, but legally changed her name and gender in 2022. She is the most famous of all Musk’s children because of her estrangement from him. Musk has said in interviews that his son, Xavier, is figuratively dead, “killed by the woke mind virus”. This is why he tries so hard to fight against woke ideology. However, Vivian has said that Musk was a mostly absent father who berated her when he was around for being feminine and queer. She has publicly denounced him and does not want to be associated with him.
- Kai, Saxon, and Damian Musk, January, 2006 – After having twins, Justine and Elon came up with triplets! The three boys have been kept out of the spotlight, but we can glean little bits of information from interviews and social media comments. For instance, Damian is apparently a bit of a whiz kid, be a talented musician as well as a maths and physics wizard. He’s also been a vegetarian since he was eight years old. There has been less said about the other two.
Elon and Justine divorced in 2008. Justine has since talked about how she felt like a ‘starter wife’ once the kids were born, and the pair grew apart.
They shared custody after the divorce but by all accounts Musk did most of his parenting via nannies. His own father has spoken out about how Elon didn’t spend enough time with his children in the early years.
There was a long period after this in which no new children were born – despite Elon Musk marrying and divorcing British actress Tallulah Riley – twice – in that time.
Children with Grimes (Claire Boucher)
Claire Boucher, better known as her stage name, Grimes, is a Canadian singer songwriter. She began dating Elon Musk in 2018.
The situation with their children is complicated to say the least. This is also when Musk started to go really off the rails with names.
- X Æ A-12 Musk, May 4th, 2020 – The internet went crazy when this little boy’s name was announced. X Æ A-12 Musk was conceived via IVF, and his name is pronounced “Ex Ash A Twelve”, but they call him X for short. It’s a fusion of the unknown variable “X,” an elven spelling of aether (Æ), and the A-12 spy plane which is apparently the parent’s favourite plane. We all have a favourite plane, right? Musk has taken X to meetings at Twitter (now X) HQ and also to a meeting at the Oval Office in the White House. That didn’t go down well with Grimes, who wants him out of the public eye as much as possible.
- Exa Dark Sideræl Musk, December 2021 – Nicknamed “Y” (we are all asking why…), Exa was born via surrogate, and in secret. No one knew she existed until she was 4 or 5 months old, when a Vanity Fair interviewer at Grimes home heard a baby crying upstairs and coaxed the truth out of her. Exa was born after Grimes and Musk separated, and apparently shows early signs of interest in engineering. As for the name, “Exa” is a nerdy nod to supercomputing (exaFLOPS), “Dark” refers to the beautiful mystery of the unknown (as in dark matter), and Sideræl (pronounced “sigh-deer-ee-el”) is a deliberately tweaked spelling of sidereal, meant to signify “true time of the universe, star time” – plus it’s a tribute to Galadriel from Lord of the Rings.
- Techno Mechanicus, June 2022 – Also known as Tau for short, Techno’s name sounds almost normal next to his older siblings’. Although this hasn’t been confirmed, it is highly likely Techno was also born via surrogate given the timings. It also means that Musk and Grimes decided to have another child despite being separated. Tau is another child who was kept secret too, remaining unknown until September 2023 when his existence was unveiled in Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk.
As if this situation wasn’t strange enough, at the same time Exa and Techno were born, Elon Musk was also having children with someone else! And amidst it all, Grimes was calling Musk out via social media.
The pair officially spit in 2o21, and by late 2023 they had legal issues with Grimes claiming Musk wasn’t allowing her to see one of her children. At another point, Grimes went on social media to beg Musk to talk to her about a medical issue concerning one of the children as he was apparently refusing to engage.
However, Grimes is reportedly on good terms with Shivon Zilis, the mother of Elon Musk’s next batch of children.
Children with Shivon Zilis
Shivon Zilis was never in a romantic relationship with Elon Musk, but she knew she wanted children and Elon offered to help.
Over time, Musk’s views on having children have become more and more… I’m not sure what the word is. Unusual? Basically, he wants smart people to have more children for the good of mankind, and is personally attempting to prop up the declining birth rate crisis which he sees as a real threat to civilization.
Anyway, this is why his arrangement with Shivon Zilis came about.
Shivon was a top director at Neuralink, one of Elon’s companies focusing on brain-machine interfaces. In her view, her choice was having kids via an anonymous sperm donor or doing it with a man she admired, so it was an easy decision to make.
I mean, there’s being pragmatic and then there’s this, but they both seem happy to approach it in a business-like way so who are we to judge them?
- Strider and Azure Zilis Musk, November 2021 – Another set of twins born via IVF, and yet another set of children kept entirely secret from the public, for almost a year this time. There have been reports that their full names are Strider Sekhar Sirius and Azure Astra Alice, which sound like Musk-esque names but the reports are unconfirmed. Notably, the twins were born just a month before Exa, Musk’s daughter with Grimes.
- Arcadia Musk, February 28th, 2024 – Arcadia’s birth was casually confirmed by Elon months after it occurred, but he denied they were keeping it a secret. He simply said that failure to issue a press release did not mean secrecy. Which is fair enough.
- Seldon Lycurgus Musk, 2025? – Seldon’s birth was revealed in late February 2025, but his date of birth is unknown. Shivon Tweeted that in light of Arcadia’s birthday, her and Elon thought it better to also announce that they had another son. In her own words, he is “built like a juggernaut, with a solid heart of gold”. Elon replied to the post with a simple heart emoji. It has been suggested that the name Seldon is taken from Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, which has a character called Hari Seldon, a brilliant mathematician who sees the future. The name Lycurgus, meanwhile, was a legendary lawgiver of Sparta. Very Elon, but again, unconfirmed.
Shivon and Elon’s relationship, such as it is, seems to be the happiest of all the mothers of his children, so perhaps there is something in this unromantic, business-like approach to having children after all. Expectations are understood from the start, and there is no reason for emotional arguments between the parents.
Silis certainly seems like the primary parent in this situation, and she has voiced that she wants her children and Grimes’ children to be involved in each other’s lives, since they are step siblings.
Children with Ashley St. Clair
This one was really left field, despite both people involved being right wing.
Ashley St. Clair met Musk during a work assignment after initially connecting on X (his social media platform, not his 5th child) and the pair grew close. She is a conservative commentator and influencer as well as an author, and shares similar political views to Musk.
On Valentine’s Day 2025, St. Clair announced via social media that he had given birth to Elon’s son 5 months earlier. Musk did not confirm or deny the child was his, instead saying that he did not know but was open to finding out. Despite not knowing, he had given St. Clair $2.5 million and $500k per year to live on in support.
A paternity test later confirmed that Musk was indeed the father.
- Romulus St. Clair, September 2024 – By all accounts, Romulus was not a planned baby. The child has not even taken his father’s surname, and if Ashley is to be believed, Musk only saw him 3 times in the first year of his life. When Ashley shared the results of the paternity test on social media, Musk simply replied, “whoa”.
Ashley and Musk’s relationship is strained to say the least. She has claimed he tried to buy her silence with $15 million and $100k per year in maintenance, but then reduced financial support significantly in order to punish her for not keeping quiet. She also claimed he has many children with other women who he has paid off, but who knows if it is true.
She said she doesn’t want her child to feel like he is a secret, but equally, wants sole custody since Musk has shown no interest and taken no part in Romulus’ upbringing or care.
Children with Amber Heard?
The plot thickens.
While 14 is the official number of children Elon Musk has sired, there is speculation that he is also the father of Amber Heard’s kids.
He dated her on and off in 2017, but court documents from 2022 indicated that Elon and Amber had created frozen embryos during their relationship, and at one point Elon wanted them destroyed while Amber wanted to keep them.
Well, in 2001, Amber Heard had a daughter via surrogate, named Oonagh Paige, and in 2025 announced that she had also had twins (Agnes and Ocean). Now, who do we know that is famous for having twins?
Elon Musk.
I have to reiterate that this is complete speculation, but a lot of the puzzle pieces fit together.
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