Elon Musk is one of the most famous entrepreneurs living today. The billionaire has led many companies throughout his career, including PayPal, Tesla, and SpaceX, as well as being an entertaining and controversial celebrity. Outside of stirring up controversy, Elon has also fathered twelve children from multiple relationships. It was revealed that he became a dad for the twelfth time in June 2024.
While 12 children may seem like a lot, Elon suggested that he may have more kids during an October 2022 interview with the Financial Times. He called himself an “autumn chicken,” but said that he found it a “bit weird,” when his friends suggested he have hundreds of kids. Even though he seemed open to the idea in the new interview, he did say that he doesn’t expect any more little ones in the near future. “I’m pretty sure there are no other babies looming,” he told the outlet.
Sadly, his first son Nevada Alexander, whom he had with his first wife, Justine Wilson, passed away in 2002. Elon’s ex-girlfriend Grimes revealed that she’d had their second child (and Elon’s most recent kid), who goes by Y, in secret during the COVID-19 pandemic. Elon surprised the world in 2022 when he revealed he welcomed his ninth and tenth kids — twins — in secret with Neuralink director of operations Shivon Zilis.
Last year, Grimes and Elon made headlines after she reportedly sued him for paternal rights over their children, as reported by NBC Newson October 3, 2023. According to the court docket obtained by the outlet, the songstress filed the lawsuit on September 29, 2023 to “establish a parental relationship” in San Francisco. The outlet noted that the official court docs were not available, however, an “alternative dispute resolution” method was reached that same day. The following year, Grimes and Elon came to an agreement in their custody battle.
Keep reading to learn more about Elon’s kids.
Nevada Alexander
Elona and Justine welcomed their first child together in 2002: son Nevada Alexander. At just 10 weeks old, the baby sadly passed away from sudden infant death syndrome, per The Sun.
Vivian And Griffin
Following Nevada’s death in 2002, Elon and Justine had a pair of twins in April 2004: Xavier and Griffin. Justine revealed that her five children were born conceived via IVF in a 2017 TedTalk. While very little is known about the twins, their mom revealed that she’d visited an IVF clinic shortly after Nevada’s death in an essay for Marie Claire in 2010. ” I buried my feelings instead, coping with Nevada’s death by making my first visit to an IVF clinic less than two months later. Elon and I planned to get pregnant again as swiftly as possible. Within the next five years, I gave birth to twins, then triplets, and I sold three novels to Penguin and Simon & Schuster,” the author wrote.
On April 18, 2022 — one day after their 18th birthday — Xavier filed to change their name to Vivian Jenna Wilson to reflect their new gender identity as a female. The documents, obtained by Hollywood Life in June, state that Vivian wishes the legal change because of “Gender Identity and the fact that I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.” She has yet to publicly clarified why she does not want to be related to Elon.
The tech guru found himself in some hot water after he liked a comment by a right-wing account that targeted the trans community in December 2022, according to The Independent. Many followers considered it a bad look on many levels for the owner, none more than the fact that he is the father of a trans daughter.
Kai, Saxon, And Damian
After the twins, Justine gave birth to triplets (again via IVF) in 2006: Kai, Saxon, and Damian. Like their brothers, very little is known about the triplets, although their dad did respond to a Twitter video in February, when someone shared a video of Damian playing piano for the elderly. The original user had mistakenly said that it was Saxon, but Elon pointed out that it was Damian. Justine and Elon divorced in 2008. The Tesla founder detailed some aspects of his relationship with the kids in a Business Insider op-ed in 2010. “Custody of our five children is split evenly. Almost all of my non-work waking hours are spent with my boys, and they are the love of my life,” he wrote at the time. After the divorce from Justine, Elon married and divorced actress Talulah Riley twice. Their first marriage lasted from 2010 to 2012, and the second marriage was from 2013 to 2016.
X Æ A-Xii
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 25, 2023
Elon’s most well-known child was born with his on-and-off girlfriend Grimes (whose real name is Claire Boucher) in 2020. The singer gave birth to their son X Æ A-Xii (X AE A-XII) on May 4 (Star Wars day!) of that year. The baby’s curious name immediately prompted questions about how to pronounce it. He revealed that it’s pronounced “X Ash A Twelve” in an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience. He told the comedian that he offered the “A-Xii” portion of his child’s name as a reference to the “Archangel 12” CIA program, which created the airplane the SR-71.
Exa Dark Sideræl Musk
— 𝖦𝗋𝗂𝗆𝖾𝗌 ⏳ (@Grimezsz) May 24, 2023
Grimes surprised the world on March 10, 2022 when she announced in an April Vanity Fair cover story interview that she and Elon secretly welcomed another child into the world via surrogate on Dec. 2021. They named the child, a girl, Exa Dark Sideræl Musk, and noted she goes by “Y,” opposite their son’s “X.”
Grimes further opened up about the meaning of their daughter’s name in the interview, noting that “Exa” refers to the term “exaFLOPS” which is the “ability to perform 1 quintillion floating-point operations per second.” She also shared that the baby’s middle name, Dark, is in reference to the unknown. “People fear it but truly it’s the absence of photons,” Grimes explained. “Dark matter is the beautiful mystery of our universe.” The singer also confirmed the pronunciation of “Sideræl” — sigh-deer-ee-el — and said that it’s meant to be a “more elven” way to spell “sidereal,” the “true time of the universe, star time, deep space time, not our relative Earth time.” Despite opening up a bit about her family, though, Grimes made it clear that she mostly plans to keep her kids out of the public eye. “I’m not at liberty to speak on these things,” she admitted. “Whatever is going on with family stuff, I just feel like the kids need to stay out of it, and X is just out there.”
The baby news was shocking to many since most understood the Canadian-born singer and Elon to be broken up at the time. Grimes opened up about their status in the interview, saying she would “probably refer to him as my boyfriend, but we’re very fluid.” She continued, “We live in separate houses. We’re best friends. We see each other all the time. We just have our own thing going on. I don’t expect other people to understand it.” She also revealed that the two plan on “at least three or four” more children together, although she did not reveal why they used a surrogate for their second child and if they planned on surrogacy for the future.
Strider & Azure
Elon Musk became a dad once again to twins with Neuralink director of operations and special projects Shivon Zilis. Zilis gave birth in November 2021, per court documents — and Elon himself confirmed the news on July 7, 2022.
He thanked Page Six for their congratulations on the babies, and said, “Bravo to big families.” It doesn’t seem like the Tesla founder is done with having kids just yet — when asked how many he wants, he said, “As many as I am able to spend time with and be a good father.”
“My eldest are off to college, and teenagers don’t want to spend much time with their parents. I wish they would,” he added.
Per the court documents, a name change was filed for the twins to “have their father’s last name and contain their mother’s last name as part of their middle name.” The change was approved in Austin, Texas by a judge in May 2022. Their names were later revealed to be Strider and Azure.
Techno Mechanicus ‘Tau’
Elon secretly welcomed a third child with Grimes, which was revealed in a September 2023 biography about Elon by Walter Isaacson. Grimes and Elon had a son named Techno Mechanicus or “Tau,” however, it’s not clear when they welcomed their second son. In July 2023, Grimes took to X (Twitter) to clap back at a photo of Shivon with the twins, as reported by Jezebel. “Tell Shivon to unblock me and tell Elon to let me see my son or plz respond to my lawyer,” the mother-of-three wrote. “I have never been allowed to see a photo of these children until this moment, despite the situation utterly ripping my family apart.”
Later, Grimes deleted the reply and shared an update regarding her kids on September 10, 2023. “I wish I could show u how cute little Techno is but my priority rn is keeping my babies out of the public eye, Plz respect that at this time Bless C,” she captioned the apology for her prior comments on the twins. Neither Elon or Grimes has addressed the latest lawsuit at the time of publication.
Third Child With Shivon Zillis
While many details about Elon’s 12th child are still under wraps, it’s been confirmed that he welcomed the baby with Shivon. When it was reported that he had fathered the child in “secret,” he responded to the claims in an interview with Page Six. “All our friends and family know. Failure to issue a press release, which would be bizarre, does not mean ‘secret,'” he told the outlet.