Elon Musk's lifelong diagnosis and 14 children with array of women while battling his own 'terrible' dad
Elon Musk's lifelong diagnosis and 14 children with array of women while battling his own 'terrible' dad
The Tesla owner has seen his huge net worth plummet due to the fierce exchange of insults
Elon Musk and Donald Trump are locked in a bitter spat
(Image: Getty Images )
The world's richest person constantly dominates headlines and that has been no different this week following his rift with Donald Trump. The two most powerful men in America have exchanged public insults after Musk criticised one of Trump's new policies.
The exchange has played out on social media for the world to watch, as the unlikely alliance appears to be coming to a rather abrupt ending. The 53-year-old tech entrepreneur had until this point been one of Trump's biggest, and most important, allies.
How did he make his money?
The boss of X, Tesla and SpaceX first made his money when he dropped out of a physics graduate degree at Stanford University to found two tech start-ups during the "dotcom boom" of the 1990s. These start-ups were a web software firm and what became PayPal.
He sold PayPal to eBay in 2002 for an impressive $1.5bn (£1.2bn). It was with this money that he was able to create SpaceX and invest heavily in Tesla where he went on to become CEO and product architect.
Now, his businesses include Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), Starlink, Neuralink and X.ai, his latest AI project. He also previously founded OpenAI.
Bloomberg now estimates his net worth to be around $335bn, but is largely dependant on Tesla's shares value which have seen a further downfall after his rift with Trump. For the latest TV and showbiz gossip sign up to our newsletter .
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Family life and 14 children
Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa to Errol and Maye Musk. From an early age he showed entrepreneurial flare, selling homemade easter eggs and making his first computer game aged 12.
Musk suffers from Asperger's Syndrome and his parents divorced while he was young. He left home at the first opportunity to study economics and physics at the University of Pennsylvania.
His relationship with his dad, Errol, has seemingly been fraught. Musk Snr has seven children, including two with his stepdaughter. While their relationship seems to have improved, with Musk allegedly paying his father's medical bills after a recent diagnosis of prostate cancer, Musk previously described him as a "terrible human being".
Musk himself is thought to have fathered at least 14 children. He met his first wife, Justine Wilson, in college. He married the writer in 2000 and the couple had six children together, sadly losing their first to sudden infant death syndrome when they were ten weeks old.
They share a set of triplets and twins with whom they've shared custody since their divorce in 2008.
Musk never had any children with his second wife Talulah Riley, the pair married and divorced twice over the course of five years.
The tech entrepreneur subsequently went on to have three children with Canadian musician Grimes; X Æ A-12, Exa Dark Sideræl and Techno Mechanicus.
Elon Musk and his son X í† leaving the Capitol Building
(Image: Getty Images )
However, just weeks before their second child was born, Musk also had IVF twins with Shivon Zilis, the director of operations and special projects at Neuralink. The couple had a further two children together, in 2024 and 2025.
Around a similar time, Musk also allegedly had a child with Ashley St. Clair.
What has happened between Musk and Trump?
The public fall-out between America's two most high-profile individuals has captured global attention. It stemmed from Elon criticising his new legislation, the tax and spending bill.
Now, the pair are locked in a war of words, with Musk slamming the US President on X, while Trump threatens Musk's government contracts
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The Independent
5 hours ago
- The Independent
Would you hail a 'robotaxi'? Musk bets cabs will give Tesla a lift after boycotts and sales plunge
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It just completed its 10 millionth paid ride. Boycotts related to Musk's politics have tanked Tesla's sales. Rival electric vehicle makers with newly competitive models have stolen market share. And investors are on edge after a $150 billion stock wipeout when Musk picked a social media fight with a U.S. president overseeing federal car regulators who could make the robotaxi rollout much more difficult. The stock has recovered somewhat after Musk said he regretted some of his remarks. Tesla shareholders have stood by Musk over the years because he's defied the odds by building a successful standalone electric vehicle company — self-driving car promises aside — and making them a lot of money in the process. A decade ago, Tesla shares traded for around $18. The shares closed Friday at $322. Musk says the Austin test will begin modestly enough, with just 10 or 12 vehicles picking up passengers in a limited area. 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In one case, a judge ruled against the plaintiffs but only because they hadn't proved Musk 'knowingly' made false statements. Musk says the robotaxis will be running on an improved version of Full Self-Driving and the cabs will be safe. He also says the service will be able to expand rapidly around the country. His secret weapon: Millions of Tesla owners now on the roads. He says an over-the-air software update will soon allow them to turn their cars into driverless cabs and start a side business while stuck at the office for eight hours or on vacation for a week. 'Instead of having your car sit in the parking lot, your car could be earning money,' Musk said earlier this year, calling it an Airbnb model for cars. 'You will be able to add or subtract your car to the fleet.' Musk says Tesla also can move fast to deploy taxis now because of his decision to rely only on cameras for the cars to navigate, unlike Waymo, which has gone a more expensive route by supplementing its cameras with lasers and radar. 'Tesla will have, I don't know,' Musk mused in an conference call with investors, '99% market share or something ridiculous.' Given Waymo's head start and potential competition from Amazon and others, dominating the driverless market to that extent could be a reach. But Dan Ives, a Wedbush Securities analyst and big Musk fan, says this time Musk may actually pull it off because of Tesla's ability to scale up quickly. And even skeptics like Morningstar's Goldstein acknowledge that Musk occasionally does gets things right, and spectacularly so. 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The Guardian
5 hours ago
- The Guardian
Tesla set to unveil self-driving car service in Austin
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Reuters
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