Musk family
South African-Canadian-American family From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Musk family is a prominent family with roots in South Africa, Canada, England, and the United States, whose most famous member is billionaire Elon Musk. It also includes his parents Maye Musk, a model and author, and Errol Musk, a mine-owner, businessman and politician; siblings Kimbal Musk and Tosca Musk, and cousin Lyndon Rive. Elon Musk's ex-wives are Justine Musk and Talulah Riley, and he has many children, including Vivian Wilson. Maye's father Joshua N. Haldeman was a notable chiropractor, aviator, and politician who promoted technocracy and South African apartheid.
Elon Musk
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Relationships and children
Musk has fathered at least fourteen children, one of whom is deceased.[1][2][3][4] He met his first wife, Canadian author Justine Wilson, while attending Queen's University in Ontario, Canada; they married in 2000.[5] In 2002, their first child Nevada Musk died of sudden infant death syndrome at the age of 10 weeks.[6] After his death, the couple used in vitro fertilization (IVF) to continue their family;[7] they had twins in 2004, followed by triplets in 2006.[7] The couple divorced in 2008 and had shared custody of their children.[8][9]
In 2008, Musk began dating English actress Talulah Riley.[10] They married two years later at Dornoch Cathedral in Scotland.[11][12] In 2012, the couple divorced, before remarrying the following year.[13] After briefly filing for divorce in 2014,[13] Musk finalized a second divorce from Riley in 2016.[14] Musk then dated Amber Heard for several months in 2017;[15] he had reportedly been "pursuing" her since 2012.[16]
In 2018, Musk and Canadian musician Grimes said that they were dating.[17] Grimes gave birth to Musk's seventh child in May 2020.[18][19] In December 2021, Grimes and Musk had a second child together (Musk's tenth child), born via surrogacy.[20] Despite the pregnancy, Musk confirmed reports that the couple were "semi-separated" in September 2021; in an interview with Time in December 2021, he said he was single.[21][22] In March 2022, Grimes said of her relationship with Musk: "I would probably refer to him as my boyfriend, but we're very fluid."[20] Later that month, Grimes tweeted that she and Musk had broken up again.[23] In September 2023 it was reported that the pair had had a third child (Musk's eleventh).[24] In October 2023, Grimes sued Musk over parental rights and custody of their eldest.[25][26][27]
In July 2022, Insider published court documents revealing that Musk had had his eighth and ninth children, twins born via IVF with Shivon Zilis, director of operations and special projects at Neuralink, in November 2021.[28] They were born weeks before Musk and Grimes had their second child via surrogacy in December. The news "raise[d] questions about workplace ethics", given that Zilis directly reported to Musk.[29] Zilis's third child together with Musk (his twelfth child) was born in early 2024 via surrogacy.[30][31] His fourth child with Zilis was born in 2025.[4]
Also in July 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk allegedly had an affair with Nicole Shanahan, the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, in 2021, leading to their divorce the following year.[32] Musk denied the report.[33] Musk also had a relationship with Australian actress Natasha Bassett, who has been described as "an occasional girlfriend".[34] In October 2024, The New York Times reported Musk bought a Texas compound for his children and their mothers,[35] though Musk denied having done so.[36]
On February 14, 2025, Ashley St. Clair, an influencer and author, posted on X claiming to have given birth to Musk's son Romulus five months earlier, which media outlets reported as Musk's supposed thirteenth child.[37][38] On February 22, 2025, it was reported that St Clair had filed for sole custody of her five-month-old son and for Musk to be recognised as the child's father.[39][40] On March 31, 2025, Musk wrote that, while he was unsure if he was the father of St. Clair's child, he had paid St. Clair $2.5 million and would continue paying her $500,000 per year.[41][42][43][44][45] Later reporting from the Wall Street Journal indicated that $1 million of these payments to St. Clair was structured as a loan.[1]
Vivian Wilson
Vivian Jenna Wilson [46] (born April 15, 2004) is an American social media personality and member of the Musk family. The eldest daughter of Elon and Justine Musk, Wilson came out as a transgender woman in 2020, and was featured in Teen Vogue in 2025. As of March 2025, she is studying in Tokyo.
X Æ A-Xii Musk
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X Æ A-Xii Musk (/ˈɛks eɪ.aɪ eɪ twɛlv/ or /ˈɛks æʃ eɪ twɛlv/[47]) was born in May 2020, the eldest child of Elon Musk and Grimes.[18][19] Musk and Grimes originally gave the baby the name "X Æ A-12", which would have violated California regulations as it contained characters (Arabic numerals) that are not in the modern English alphabet.[48][49] They then changed it to "X Æ A-Xii".[50][51] They have received criticism for choosing a name perceived to be impractical and difficult to pronounce.[52]
Elon Musk has taken X Æ A-Xii to multiple official events in Washington, D.C. during Trump's second term in office.[53]
Errol Musk
Errol Graham Musk is a South African politician and businessman,[54] who was elected as an independent to represent Sunnyside on the Pretoria City Council in 1972.[55]
Musk had a lucrative engineering business which took on "large projects such as office buildings, retail complexes, residential subdivisions, and an air force base." He also owned an auto parts store, at least half a share in an emerald mine, and even "one of the biggest houses in Pretoria".[56][57] He was married to Maye Musk from 1970 to 1979.[58][57]
Maye's book recalls that at the time of the divorce, he owned two homes, a yacht, a plane, five luxury cars, and a truck.[59]
In the early 1990s, Errol, then aged 45, married Heide Bezuidenhout, a 25-year old he described as "one of the best looking women I've ever seen in my life".[60] They had two children.[61] Jana Bezuidenhout, who later became his romantic partner, was his stepdaughter from that marriage, four years old at the time Errol became her stepfather.[61][62]
Errol Musk's mother, Cora Amelia Robinson, was English from Liverpool, and his father, Walter Henry James Musk, was mostly English-South African.[63][64]
Maye Musk
Maye Musk (née Haldeman; born April 19, 1948)[65] is a model, dietitian and author.[66][67] She has been a model for 50 years, appearing on the covers of magazines, including a Time magazine health edition, Women's Day, international editions of Vogue, and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. She is the mother of Elon Musk, Kimbal Musk and Tosca Musk.[68] She holds Canadian, South African, and American citizenship. She is a registered dietitian. She published her memoir, A Woman Makes a Plan in 2019.
Joshua Haldeman
Haldeman was an American-born Canadian chiropractor and political activist who, in the early days of formalized apartheid, moved to South Africa.[69] Prior to the move, Haldeman headed the Canadian branch of Technocracy movement and ran for the Parliament of Canada on the Social Credit Party ticket.[70][71] Over the course of his life, he publicly expressed racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-democratic views, promoted a number of conspiracy theories, and was a supporter of South Africa's apartheid system.[72]
The Haldeman couple spent time searching for the Lost City of the Kalahari by plane.[73] Haldeman's mother Almeda Jane (Norman) Haldeman was the first recorded chiropractor in Canada.[72]
Wyn Fletcher
Winnifred Josephine Fletcher (1914–2012) was born in Moose Jaw, Canada, to English parents. Her older sister Kay Fletcher married the Canadian ice hockey player Elmer Lach.[74]
Walter Musk
Walter Henry James Musk was a South African World War II veteran.[75] He was from a mostly English-South African background.[76] He served as a cryptographer in a military intelligence unit in Egypt during World War II.[77] He was the paternal grandfather of Elon Musk.
Cora Robinson
Cora Amelia Robinson was born in Edge Hill, Liverpool to an English father and a South African mother. She moved to South Africa during World War II. Her father, from Toxteth, Liverpool, had emigrated to South Africa where he married her mother in 1911. Her mother was from a Dutch-South African background. They moved to Edge Hill, Liverpool and lived there until World War II.[76]
Kimbal Musk
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Kimbal James Musk (born September 20, 1972) is a South African restaurateur, chef, and entrepreneur. He is the brother of Elon Musk and Tosca Musk, and son of Errol and Maye Musk.
He owns The Kitchen Restaurant Group, a collection of restaurants located in Colorado and Chicago.[78] He is the co-founder and chairman of Big Green, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has built hundreds of outdoor classrooms called Learning Gardens in schoolyards across America.[79][80][81] Musk is also the co-founder and chairman of Square Roots, an urban farming company growing food in hydroponic, indoor, climate controlled shipping containers.[82][83][84] Musk currently sits on the boards of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, both of which his brother Elon is the current CEO. He is a major shareholder in Tesla. He was on the board of Chipotle Mexican Grill[85] from 2013 to 2019.[86]
In 1995 he co-founded, with his brother, Elon Musk, the software company Zip2, which was acquired by Compaq for $307 million in 1999.
Kimbal Musk was married to Jen Lewin, with whom he established The Kitchen, from 2001 to 2010. The couple had two children together.[87] In April 2018, he married Christiana Wyly, an environmental activist and the daughter of ex-billionaire Sam Wyly.[88]
Musk also has a daughter from another relationship.[89] One of his children is transgender.[90]
Tosca Musk
Tosca Musk (born July 20, 1974) is a South African filmmaker, who is the younger sister of Elon Musk and Kimbal Musk, and daughter of Errol Musk and Maye Musk.[91]
She is an executive producer and director of feature films, television programs, and web content. Her work includes K. Bromberg's Driven, Rachel van Dyken's Matchmaker's Playbook, and her web series, Tiki Bar TV.[92][93] She co-founded the streaming service Passionflix.
Lyndon Rive
Lyndon Robert Rive (born 22 January 1977) is a South African-American businessman known as the co-founder of SolarCity, and its CEO until 2016. SolarCity is a provider of photovoltaic systems and related services. Rive co-founded SolarCity with his brother Peter in 2006. He is a cousin of Elon Musk; his mother Kaye Rive is the twin sister of Maye Musk.[94]
Rive started his first company at age 17 before leaving his native country, South Africa.[95] He then co-founded the enterprise software company Everdream, which was ultimately acquired by Dell.[96] In 2010, Rive was named in the MIT Technology Review's Innovators Under 35 as one of the top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35.[97]
Rive's parents were entrepreneurs in the natural-health business in Pretoria, South Africa. Rive has three siblings: SolarCity co-founder Peter Rive, Russ Rive who runs an art, technology, and design company in Brazil, and competitive dirt bike rider Almeda Rive.[98]
References
Further reading
External links
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