Elon Musk Bio Reveals Third Kid With Grimes

It's only been a few days since an apparently painful dispute over parenting between Elon Musk and onetime partner Grimes spilled over into social media. But with the publication of a new biography of the controversial billionaire coming ever closer, surprising details from Musk's life continue to leak. The latest detail, while less incendiary than the news that he allegedly stopped a Ukrainian military effort in its tracks, is still brow-raising: The profligate parent reportedly has not two, but three children with Grimes, bringing the earthly count of Musk progeny to at least 10.

This latest detail comes to us from biographer Walter Isaacson, whose tight relationship with the X (formerly Twitter) owner involves years as his shadow and bizarre early-morning texts. Isaacson's book on the magnate, Elon Musk, is set for release on Sept. 12, and while multiple publications have excerpted the tome, the New York Times appears to have its first review.

Within that assessment, Grimes is referred to as “the mother of three of Musk’s children (the existence of the third, Techno Mechanicus, nicknamed Tau, has been kept private until now),” surprising information given recent headlines that just last week, Grimes tweeted to Isaacson “tell Elon to let me see my son or plz respond to my lawyer" before deleting the post.

When Grimes' post was first noted, folks (including this one) assumed that the son Grimes referred to was three-year-old X Æ A-12; the pair also share a daughter, Exa Dark Sideræl Musk, born in December of 2021. According to the NYT, “Musk didn’t tell Grimes that he had just had twins with one of his employees” when Exa was born, bringing the number of his living biological children to nine. (Another of Musk's children, Nevada Alexander Musk, died in infancy in 2002.)

According to Shivon Zilis, the mother of the twins in question, Musk “really wants smart people to have kids,” Isaacson quotes her as saying, and that he” offered to be her sperm donor" so “the kids would be genetically his.”

But at some point after that donation, Musk—or his genetic material—apparently returned to Grimes. “Isaacson's book reveals that Musk's ex-girlfriend, musician Claire Boucher, whose stage name is Grimes, had a new baby boy last year,” CBS Sunday Morning reports, suggesting that this child—Musk's 10th that we know about—was born after his twins with Zilis.

Since then, it appears that relations between Musk and Grimes have grown rockier, with Grimes tweeting of the twins last week that “I have never been allowed to see a photo of these children until this moment, despite the situation utterly ripping my family apart.” But more kids with Musk is consistent with the hopes she expressed to Vanity Fair last year, saying then that the pair ”always wanted at least three or four," even though the couple were no longer together in the traditional sense.