Elon Musk confirms birth of 12th child as he denies keeping baby 'secret' (2024)

Elon Musk has confirmed the birth of his 12th child and denied claims he tried to keep the baby’s arrival ‘secret’.

It’s the 52-year-old’s third child with Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis, with whom he also had twins in November 2021.

Musk, who alongside Neuralink is also the founder of SpaceX and Tesla, is understood to have welcomed his new baby early this year – but the arrival only became public knowledge over the weekend.

The billionaire denied claims he had tried to keep the child’s arrival under wraps but claimed that issuing a press release about it would have been ‘bizarre’.

Musk, who is known to be concerned over population decline, told PageSix on Sunday night: ‘As for ‘secretly fathered,’ that is also false.

‘All our friends and family know. Failure to issue a press release, which would be bizarre, does not mean ‘secret’.’

The baby’s name and gender have not yet been publicly revealed, but their arrival was first referenced in a report by Bloomberg published on Friday called ‘Elon Wants You to Have More Babies’.

The article discussed South African-born Musk’s keen interest in population rates, with PageSix reporting that he had also sent ‘a link to statistics on fertilityrates from the World Bank Group’ alongside commenting on many countries being ‘well below replacement rate’ in terms of babies being born.

Social media CEO Musk, who is the owner of X, and Zilis welcomed their twins, Strider and Azure, just one month before the birth of two-year-old daughter Exa Dark Sideræl, also known as Y, who Musk had with musician Grimes via surrogacy.

Y’s birth was memorably revealed when the tot began crying upstairs when her mother, real name Claire Elise Boucher, was being interviewed by Vanity Fair.

He and Grimes, 36, also have son X Æ A-Xii, four, and their youngest son Techno Mechanicus, known as Tau, whose secret birth was revealed in a biography on Musk published last September.

The couple had dated between 2018 and March 2022, and are thought to have been on friendly terms although it was reported that she allegedly took legal action against him in October in order to ‘establish a parental relationship’.

His older children number twins, Griffin and Vivian, 20, and triplets Kai, Saxon and Damian, who were born in 2006.

He shared all five with his ex-wife, Canadian author Justine Wilson, who confirmed they were all conceived via IVF.

This came after the former couple’s eldest son, Nevada Alexander, tragically died at 10 weeks of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, in 2002.

After he and Wilson divorced in 2008, Musk went on to marry and divorce (twice) British actress Talulah Riley, 38.

The pair initially tied the knot in 2010 before divorcing in 2012, only to marry again in 2013 after they reconciled.

By 2016, they had divorced for the final time, and over this weekend she married Love Actually star Thomas Brodie-Sangster, 34.

Musk’s daughter Vivian filed to legally change her name and gender in 2022 at the age of 18, after being born ‘Xavier Alexander’.

The then-teenager declared that she no longer wanted to ‘be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form’.

This was according to a petition filed with the Los Angeles County Superior Court in Santa Monica in April 2022, which came to light that June, according to the BBC.

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