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Elon Musk Welcomes Baby No. 12, His 3rd Baby With Shivon Zilis
Elon Musk has said people should have as many children asthey feasibly can for the good of the planet.
Hence the SpaceX founder becoming the poster billionaire for his own cause.
The 52-year-old quietly welcomed his 12th child and third with 38-year-oldShivon Zilisearlier this year,confirming as much to Page Six on June 23.
"People are going to have to revive the idea of having children as a kind of social duty," Musk said in a 2014 interview, per biographer Walter Isaacson. "Otherwise civilization will just die."
That brand of charm may not be for everybody, but the thrice-married(twice to the same woman)Tesla CEO has enjoyed a robust romantic lifein the course of becoming a prolific procreator—though one circ*mstance hasn't necessarily been required to lead to the other.
"He really wants smart people to have kids, so he encouraged me to," Zilis told Isaacson for his 2023 book onthe man frequently atopForbes' real-time richest-person-alive list. "If the choice is between an anonymous sperm donor or doing it with the person you admire most in the world, for me that was a pretty f--king easy decision. I couldn't possibly think of genes I would prefer for my children."
Not least, she added, "It seemed like something that would make him very happy."
But what else makes Zilis tick, you ask? Here's more to know about the tech executivewho's had three babies with Musk:
Shivon Zilis/X
Who is Shivon Zilis?
Zilis was born Feb. 8, 1986, in Markham, Ontario, to mom Sharda, who's originally from India, and dad Richardof Canada.
Speaking of her heritage, Zilis toldUSA Todayin 2015 that she "pretty much turned out white," but attributed her big eyes to her Punjabi side.
Sheplayed ice hockey atYale before graduating in 2008 with degrees in economics and philosophy.
Zilis credited being a goalie for helping her develop some of the skills she later utilized in the fast-paced tech world, so much of which runs on being able to predict what consumers are going to want years down the road.
"The goalie gets to watch the play unfold from a bit of a distance so you get a unique macro level versus always being in the thick of it," she told the Financial Postin 2015. "The real art of goaltending is being able to get a good read on the players and predict what he/she is going to do."
What does Shivon Zilis do?
She kicked off her career working for IBM in New York, focusing on micro-finance initiatives in developing countries—and furthering her interest in artificial intelligence.
In 2012 she cofounded San Francisco-based Bloomberg Beta, a $75 million venture capital fund investing in early-stage startups that focused onmachine intelligence, which Zilis correctly envisionedwould eventually affect countless industries.
"I always knew that stuff was going to happen before it happened," she toldUSA Today. Still, she called herself an "unsexy investor," moreinclined to support an agricultural-tech endeavor than a buzziercompany like Snapchat.
Shivon Zilis/X
Forbes included her in its"30 Under 30: Top Young Investors of Venture Capital" list in 2015—which Zilis called"a pretty delightful surprise."
Musk cofounded OpenAI in 2015 and reportedly met Ziliswhen she did consulting work for the ChatGPT creator.
In 2017, Zilis joined Tesla—where Musk was an early investor and has been CEO since 2008—as a project director for itsAutopilot product and chip design team.
Musk left OpenAI in 2018, whileZilis remained on theboarduntil March 2023. She is currentlydirector of operations and special projects at Neuralink, which Musk started in 2016.
CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images
Whatis Shivon Zilis' relationship with Elon Musk?
Zilis has acknowledged that the owner of the company she works for has his issues, but she's gone to bat for Musk as a humanitarian and visionary.
"No one's perfect but I've never met anyone who goes through more personal pain to fight for an inspiring future for humanity— and has done so tirelessly for decades," Zilis tweeted about Musk in May 2020 (two years before he bought Twitter and turned it into X). "Everyone's entitled to their opinion but mine is that there's no one I respect and admire more."
Shivon Zilis/X
Zilis told Musk biographer Isaacson thatshe "learned more unique lessons from Elon per minute than any other human I've met. It would be dumb to not spend some of your life with such a person."
Hence her decision to relocate fromSilicon Valleyto Austin, Texas, as Musk did and then have children with him, conceived via IVF. (Zilisacknowledged having "the motherhood bug super hard" but wasn't interested in getting married.)
They welcomed twins Strider Sekhar Sirius and Azure Astra Alice in November 2021—the expansion of Musk's family not known until the following July, when they filed paperwork in Texas to legally change the kids' last name from hers to his.
Shivon Zilis/X
Zilis said that the name change was spurred by Musk's estrangement from his daughterVivian Jenna,one of his five surviving children with ex-wife Justine Wilson. (Son Nevada Alexander died of SIDSwhen he was 10 weeks old.)
"When Jenna deleted 'Musk' from her name," Zilis explained, "he was just really sad. And he asked me, 'Hey, would you be open to our twins taking my name?'"
Zilis didn't expect Musk to play a traditional father role in theraising of the twins—"because the dude's got a lot going on," she told Isaacson—but he wouldstay at herhouse at least once a week and was surprisingly doting.
"There's just some stuff he can't do because he's emotionally hardwired a bit differently," she explained. "But when he comes in, they light up and have eyes only for him, which lights him up as well."
Jason Kempin/Getty Images
Is Shivon Zilisfriends withElon Musk's ex Grimes?
Once Zilis moved to Austin, she was part of a social circle that included Musk and his now-ex-partnerGrimes, with whom he also sharessonsX Æ A-Xii(X for short), 4, and Techno "Tau" Mechanicus, 2, and daughterExa Dark Sideræl(also known as Y), 2.
According to Isaacson, the singer considered Zilis a friend and occasionally tried to matchmake for her.
Musk's twins with Zilis arrived a few weeks before Exa was bornthrough asurrogate in December 2021, three months after Musk and Grimes "semi-separated," as he put it in a tweet.
"It's mostly that my work at SpaceX and Tesla requires me to be primarily in Texas or traveling overseas and her work is primarily in LA," Musk wrote. "She's staying with me now and Baby X is in the adjacent room."
As for Grimes' decision to have a second child with Musk (via surrogate following her tough first pregnancy), she told Isaacson, "I really wanted him to have a daughter so bad."
Grimes and Musk reunited but hadbroken upagainby March 2022while their third child was on the way.Tau was born via surrogacyin June 2022.
Meanwhile, Grimes didn't know thatMusk was the father of Zilis' babies until the rest of the world found out from the published court filing in July 2022 and, according to Isaacson, was "outraged."
Musk acknowledged the eyebrow-raising news that he had children with someone who worked at his companies by tweeting, "Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis. A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far."
Shivon Zilis/X
Where is Shivon Zilis now?
Zilis lives in Austin withthe twins and her months-old third child with Musk, whose name and sex have not been publicly shared.
"All our friends and family know," he told Page Six June 23. "Failure to issue a press release, which would be bizarre, does not mean 'secret.'"
AndZilisremains onboard with his myriad visions.
"It's been one of the most meaningful friendships of my life, by far," Zilis toldIsaacson of her kids' father. "Soon after I met him I said, 'I hope we're friends for life."
As Musk quippedduring a dinner with several NASA directors in February 2022, barely twomonths removed from the birth of his twins with Zilis and then his daughter with Grimes, "Among my friends, the average number of kids is one. Some have zero. I try to set a good example."
For a full breakdown of Musk's family, relationships and the 12 children that followed, read on…
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Twitter / Justine Musk
Twitter / Elon Musk
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X / Shivon Zilis
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