Photos : Inside the life of Elon Musk: His family, career, and surprising facts you didn't know
Despite being born in South Africa, Elon Musk is also a citizen of Canada and the USA.
He is now officially the father of 12 children, whom he had with several women.
Elon Musk and his first wife, Justine Wilson, welcomed six children together. They first had a son, Nevada, in 2002, who sadly passed away ten weeks later. They then had twins Vivian and Griffin, then triplets Kai, Saxon and Damian.
Elon Musk and singer Grimes welcomed three children together over the course of their relationship: X Æ A-Xii, Exa Dark Sideræl, and Techno Mechanicus.
Elon Musk and Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis first welcomed twins Strider and Azure in 2021, and they had another child, whose name remains a mystery, in 2024.
Many of his children were conceived through artificial insemination and surrogacy. He has repeatedly emphasised that demographic decline is one of the greatest threats to humanity and that more people should have children.
It started with Griffin and Xavier, but at some point the names of his children became more unusual. His son with the musician Grimes was named ‘X Æ A-12’, which had to be adapted due to Californian naming laws. Their daughter was named ‘Exa Dark Sideræl’.
Known for his intense working style, Elon Musk often sleeps on the floor of his office or in factories to drive projects forward.
During his studies at the University of Pennsylvania, he organised large, paid parties to pay his rent.
He owns the Lotus Esprit, which was used as a submarine car in the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me.
Elon Musk has made cameo appearances in films such as Iron Man 2 and Machete Kills. He has also appeared in The Big Bang Theory.
Under his own label Emo G Records, Elon Musk released the rap song RIP Harambe in 2019 and the EDM track Don't Doubt Ur Vibe in 2020.
Elon Musk suggested warming Mars by using nuclear weapons to make it habitable.
Elon Musk has publicly admitted to using ketamine in small doses to treat depression.
In 1995, Elon Musk dropped out of Standford University to work on his first company, Zip2. During that time, he is believed to have stayed in the country illegally, as he had entered the US on a student visa.
At the age of 12, Elon Musk developed a video game called Blastar and sold it to a computer magazine for 500 US dollars.
Elon Musk founded the online banking company X.com in March 1999 with the aim of offering financial services more simply and cost-effectively than traditional banks. Following his takeover of Twitter in 2022, he renamed the platform ‘X’ in 2023.
In addition to dogs and cats, Elon Musk owns a hedgehog called ‘Shrub’.
Despite his enormous fortune, Elon Musk lives in a modest house in Texas, which is said to have cost less than $50,000.
In 2023, Elon Musk challenged the Facebook founder to an MMA fight after he had started practising jiu-jitsu.
While Elon Musk and his mother are a good team, his father is a different story. Errol Musk has spoken publicly about their strained relationship and criticised his son's parenting methods.
Maye and Errol Musk got a divorce in 1979 after welcoming three children together, due to Errol Musk's admitted infidelity.
In 1998, Errol Musk shot and killed three men who had broken into his home. He was charged with manslaughter but he was later acquitted, after the court found that he had acted in self-defense.
Errol Musk got into a relationship with one of his former stepdaughters, Jana Bezuidenhout, with whom he had two daughters. This relationship reportedly dug an even deeper fracture into Elon and Errol's bond.
The billionaire has never hidden his disdain for his father, calling him a ‘terrible human being’. In an interview with Rolling Stone, he said:
‘You have no idea about how bad [he is]. Almost every crime you can possibly think of, he has done.’
Elon Musk and his mother Maye are extremely close. She once said she knew her son was a genius when he was only three years old, and ‘his reasoning was sensible’.
In 2024, Elon Musk was chosen by President Donald Trump to head the Department of Government Efficiency, a new agency whose goal is to reduce bureaucracy in the USA.
In 2021, Elon Musk announced that he has a form of autism known as Asperger's syndrome. He said during his monologue on Saturday Night Live: 'I'm actually making history tonight as the first person with Asperger's to host SNL.'
Elon Musk's daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson, was born in 2004 as one of the twins from his marriage to Justine Wilson. In 2022, she officially applied to change her name and gender registration to reflect her identity as a trans woman. The relationship between Vivian and Elon Musk is considered strained. He said that her gender reassignment was caused by the ‘woke mind virus’, which had ‘killed his son’.
Elon Musk's oldest child, Vivian, often speaks out against her father, especially regarding his transphobic statements. She claims she has cut ties with him completely.
