>>2289432Familt SecretsBy 2022, Mr. Musk, who has married and divorced three times, had fathered six children in his first marriage (including one who died in infancy), as well as two with Ms. Boucher. She told people she believed they were in a monogamous relationship and building a family together.
But while a surrogate was pregnant with their third child, Ms. Boucher was furious to discover that Mr. Musk had recently fathered twins with Shivon Zilis, an executive at his brain implant company, Neuralink, according to people familiar with the situation.
Privately, he was spending time with Simone and Malcolm Collins, prominent figures in the emerging pronatalist movement, and urging his wealthy friends to have as many children as possible. He believed the world needed more intelligent people, according to people aware of the conversations.
Ms. Boucher reconciled with Mr. Musk, only to get another unpleasant surprise. In August 2023, she learned that Ms. Zilis was expecting a third child with Mr. Musk via surrogacy and was pregnant with their fourth.
Ms. Boucher and Mr. Musk began a contentious custody battle, during which Mr. Musk kept X for months. They eventually signed the joint custody agreement that specified keeping their children out of the spotlight.
By mid-2023, unknown to either Ms. Boucher or Ms. Zilis, Mr. Musk had started a romantic relationship with Ms. St. Clair, the writer, who lives in New York City.
Ms. St. Clair said in an interview that at first, Mr. Musk told her he wasn’t dating anyone else. But when she was about six months pregnant, he acknowledged that he was romantically involved with Ms. Zilis, who went on to become a more visible fixture in Mr. Musk’s life.
Ms. St. Clair said that Mr. Musk told her he had fathered children around the world, including one with a Japanese pop star. He said he would be willing to give his sperm to anyone who wanted to have a child.
Ms. St. Clair said that when she was in a delivery room giving birth in September, Mr. Musk told her over disappearing Signal messages that he wanted to keep his paternity and their relationship quiet.
On election night, Ms. St. Clair and Mr. Musk both went to Mar-a-Lago to celebrate Mr. Trump’s victory. But she had to pretend that she hardly knew him, she said.
He offered her $15 million and $100,000 a month until their son turned 21, in exchange for her silence, according to documents reviewed by The Times and first reported by The Journal. But she did not want her son’s paternity to be hidden.
After she went public in February, ahead of a tabloid story, she sued Mr. Musk to acknowledge paternity and, later, to get emergency child support.
Mr. Musk sought a gag order, claiming that any publicity involving the child, or comments by Ms. St. Clair on her experience, would be a security risk for the boy.
No Sympathy for This BehaviorSome of Mr. Musk’s onetime friends have aired concerns about what they considered toxic public behavior.
In a January newsletter explaining why their friendship had ended, Sam Harris, a public intellectual, wrote that Mr. Musk had used his social media platform to defame people and promote lies.
“There is something seriously wrong with his moral compass, if not his perception of reality,” Dr. Harris wrote.
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