Elon Musk has confirmed that he is the father of twins born to his Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis in Nov. 2021, per Page Six. The outlet reported that when they congratulated the Tesla CEO, 51, he responded with a simple “thanks” and then said, “Bravo to big families.” Elon, who now has nine living children, also told the publication he plans to have as many kids as he can while also being able “to spend time with [them] and be a good father.” He also hinted that he was feeling like a bit of an empty nester before welcoming his twins. “My eldest are off to college, and teenagers don’t want to spend much time with their parents. I wish they would,” he said.
Elon isn’t just worried about losing attention from his kids; he is severely concerned about the declining birth rates around the world. On July 7, before officially confirming he created babies with Shivon, the SpaceX founder took to Twitter to say, “Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis. A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far.” He also tweeted, “I hope you have big families and congrats to those who already do!”
Elon has been quite open about his concerns with declining birth rates in the past. “I can’t emphasize this enough: There are not enough people,” he said during The Wall Street Journal‘s CEO Council Summit on Dec. 6, 2021, per The Hill. “One of the biggest risks to civilization is the low birth rate and the rapidly declining birth rate.”
Elon isn’t new to being a new father. He and his on-and-off-again girlfriend Grimes, 34, secretly welcomed a daughter via surrogate in Dec. 2021. They named their daughter Exa Dark Sideræl Musk, who is the younger sister to their first child together, a boy named X Æ A-Xii (X AE A-XII), who was born in May 2020.
Elon also isn’t new to welcoming more than one baby at once. The billionaire has twins Griffin and Vivian, 18, and triplets Kai, Saxon, and Damian, 16, who he shares with his ex-wife Justine Musk. Elon and Justine also had a son named Nevada in 2002, but he tragically died when he was just 10 weeks old due to sudden infant death syndrome.
And just because Elon has one big family, it’s not necessarily one big happy family. In April, Vivian changed her name to Vivian Jenna Wilson, ditching her father’s last name and confirming her female gender identity. In official documents obtained by HollywoodLife, Vivian said she changed her name due to “gender identity” and she “no longer” wants to be related to her father “in any way, shape or form.”