It's been a comparatively quiet few weeks for Elon Musk. The world's richest man has never been one to shy away from the headlines, but the most recent news surrounding Musk is a bombshell: he reportedly fathered two children in secret with one of his employees.
Even though the news does not reflect well on Musk at all, it hasn't stopped him from responding to the reports in his typical tongue-in-cheek manner.
Musk was in a high-profile relationship with Canadian musician Grimes. The two have had two children: a son named, uh, X Æ A-12 Musk back in 2020 and a daughter named sigh Exa Dark Sideræl Musk in 2022.
The children, who are twins, were born in November. That means they were born just a few weeks before Musk's second child with Grimes was born in December.
Unsurprisingly, this came amid turmoil in the relationship: they split up in September of 2021, got back together, but then split up again — apparently for good — in March of this year.
According to Insider, thanks to the court documents, we know that Musk fathered the children with Shivon Zilis, who's an executive at one of the companies Musk owns, Neuralink. The two filed a court order — which was approved — in May to change the names of the twins to "have their father's last name and contain their mother's last name as part of their middle name."
Let us be clear: the relationship between Musk and Zilis appears to be entirely consensual, if a bit icky because of Musk's relationship status at the time, not to mention the power imbalance.
But just a few months ago, Musk was accused of pressuring a female SpaceX employee to give him massages and "more" on his private jet. Notably, he promised to buy her a horse if she complied.
Yes, Earth's population boom of the past fifty years or so is unsustainable, but that hasn't stopped Musk from warning that "civilization [will] crumble" if people don't start having more babies. In fact, the tweet pinned at the top of his account warns of problems with the U.S. birth rate.
Until the big reveal of his secret twins, Musk was known to have eight children: two with Grimes and six with his ex-wife Justine. But he had nothing to say about the secret babies until the news broke this week.
If you were expecting a mea culpa or perhaps some details on his secret children, you'll be disappointed. Musk issued this tongue-in-cheek tweet stating that he's "doing [his] best to help the underpopulation crisis."
Because he just can't help himself, Musk doubled down on his tweets, congratulating those who have large families. Now that he has ten kids (that we know of), Musk is definitely part of the big family club.
Between Grimes and Gilis, the mothers of his most recent children, Musk likely has some serious explaining to do — and probably some settlements to dole out. But he's more preoccupied with this various space projects.
If you don't know Musk for Mars stuff, you probably know him for cars stuff. He took the big reveal of his secret kids as an opportunity to plug his automotive company, teasing a vehicle that will almost definitely never make it to production.
Musk is known for a few things in the year 2022: sexual impropriety, shilling for his companies and being a troll on Twitter. He's managed to combine all three into some truly breathtaking drama.
We'll update you on any developments to this story, which are sure to come up in the coming days and weeks.
h/t: Insider
