Shivon Zilis and Elon Musk Secretly Had Twins — All About Their Relationship

Tesla CEO and world’s richest person Elon Musk had twins last year in secret with Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis. The two babies make Musk a father of nine children.

Musk, who also shares two children with musician Grimes, co-founded the brain chip company Neuralink. Here’s all about his relationship with Zilis (or what we know about this under-the-radar family dynamic) and who Zilis is.

According to reports, Zilis birthed twins in November 2021, making the babies approximately eight months old as of July 7, 2022. With court approval in May, Zilis and Musk agreed to allow the twins to have Musk’s last name, but keep Zilis for their middle name.

Based on the birth date, Zilis’ twins are older than Grimes’ second baby with the billionaire, who was born via a surrogate a few weeks after the twins. Grimes and Musk are no longer partners and 51-year-old Musk is reportedly dating 30-year-old Australian actress Natasha Bassett at the moment. Now, Musk is the father of nine children (at least the ones that are public).

Zilis is an artificial intelligence (AI) expert and the director of operations and special projects at Neuralink, a firm co-founded by Musk that focuses on neural engineering and implantable brain chips. Neuralink’s flagship product, Link, connects “thousands of neurons in the brain [to] record the activity of these neurons, process these signals in real time, and send that information to the Link.” Link’s first application will be to help treat quadriplegic individuals.

A graduate of Yale University, Zilis “cares most about machine learning for good.” She is a fellow at a machine learning incubator at the University of Toronto, on the board of the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute, and a C100 charter member. In short, she has found serious success in her field despite being just 36 years old. Zilis was previously named one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in and LinkedIn's 35 Under 35.

As for what Musk says about the news of his now-public children with Zilis, his focus has been on spreading word about the “underpopulation crisis.”

Musk tweeted, “A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far,” adding his words “are sadly true.” Weaved into this message is the notion that Musk is doing the world a favor by having a large family.

However, it wasn’t all a message about a looming disaster for the human race. Musk also tweeted, “I hope you have big families and congrats to those who already do!” He even humored his audience with speak of a “highly configurable Robovan” to accommodate large families.

Musk and Zilis don't seem to be in a romantic relationship, but anything could be bubbling under the surface. After all, they were able to keep their twins a secret for more than half a year. The two listed a shared Austin address in court filings for a home worth $4 million. One thing we know for sure is the two met at an AI non-profit called OpenAI, and their lives haven't been the same since.