Standing beside the wealthiest person in the world and mingling with influential figures connected to the new Trump administration made for an eventful evening for a tech executive who has generally kept a low profile.
Shivon Zilis, who is a mother of three out of Elon Musk’s 12 children, accompanied the billionaire to a donor party in Washington prior to the inauguration. At the event, she engaged in conversations with Jeff Bezos and his partner Lauren Sanchez, as well as Ivanka Trump’s spouse Jared Kushner.
Up until now, the 38-year-old, originally from Ontario, Canada, has mostly shown her support for Musk from the sidelines, and despite having three children with him, the nature of their relationship has never been explicitly defined.
In Trump’s new government, Musk will be working in the newly created ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ – and was invited to speak to crowds during a pre-inauguration rally on Sunday.
After watching from the sidelines, Shivon proudly joined Elon at a party for donors, attended by family and friends of the Trumps, as well as celebrities – including Kid Rock, Anuel AA, Justin Quiles and Jon Voight – marking the first time the mother-of-three has ever been at Musk’s side in such as high profile fashion.
She was spotted at the First Policy Institute’s black-tie gala at Mar-a-Lago days after Trump’s re-election, but remained on the sidelines while Musk posed with their daughter Azure – one of their twins, while they welcomed a third child last year.
When the twins were born in 2021, Musk was also preparing to welcome a second child with ex-girlfriend Grimes but Zilis insisted at the time that they were not in a relationship and that the Tesla boss had offered to donate sperm so she could conceive via IVF.
Zilis told Musk’s biographer, Walter Isaacson, that she’d been looking for an anonymous donor at the time, but was delighted when her billionaire boss offered to step in.
‘He really wants smart people to have kids, so he encouraged me to do this,’ she told Isaacson. ‘I can’t possibly think of genes I would prefer for my children.’
The Space X founder has been vocal about his beliefs that people need to have more children to combat population decline, and has fathered 12 children with three different mothers.
He had six children with his first wife Justine Wilson, who he divorced in 2008, three with on-again/off-again girlfriend Canadian musician Grimes and three with Zilis.
In June 2024, the billionaire confirmed he had welcomed a third child with Zilis – currently the director of operations and special projects at his brain tech firm Neuralink – but kept the baby’s name and gender a secret.
It is not clear what this means for the status of their relationship, but her presence at last night’s event, apparently playing the role of supportive partner, seems highly significant.
The couple are believed to have met when Shivon was working on the board at the non-profit OpenAI, which was founded by Musk in 2015.
When their twins Strider and Azure were born in 2021, Musk was also preparing to welcome a second child with his ex-girlfriend Grimes, a futuristic singer, who he dated on-and-off for three-and-a-half years.
Their son, Techno ‘Tau’ Mechanicus, was born via surrogate.
Grimes is thought to have only found out Musk was the father of Zilis’s twins a month after they were born. He’s said to have added insult to injury by taking a name they had decided for their daughter – Valkyrie – and giving it to one of Zilis’ twins, sources told the New York Times.
According to the same article, Grimes and Zilis were friends at one point and were in the same social circle.
When the singer found out about the existence of the twins, she posted furiously on X, tagging Musk’s biographer.
‘I have never even been allowed to see a photo of these children until this moment, despite the situation utterly ripping my family apart,’ she wrote at the time, although she later deleted the tweet.
Musk later opted not to name either twin Valkyrie, and landed on the names Strider and Azure, while Grimes and Zilow appeared to quickly bury the hatchet.
Taking to X again, Grimes wrote that she had ‘totally forgiven the situation’, and decried the fact that ‘women are so often pitted against each other’.
‘I spoke with Shivon at length finally, which was long overdue,’ she wrote. ‘This wasn’t her fault, plz don’t be angry at her! We respect each other a lot and we’re excited to become friends and have the kids grow up together.
‘I truly apologize for responding to Walter like that. As u can imagine, that was a very gut level reaction to a thing that has been very hard for me. Communication about the twins wasn’t handled super well in the past, but I now totally understand what happened and totally forgive the situation.
‘Speaking with Shivon, it’s very evident she’s an amazing human and we both just want what’s best for our kids,’ she wrote.
The love appears to be mutual, as Zilis was quick to reply: ‘At the end of the day it all ended up for the best! Thank you for taking the time to really connect and understand each other. So glad we had such a wonderful talk, was insanely overdue.
‘You’re a total badass and I respect you very much as well. I can’t wait for kiddo play date and congrats on baby Tau as well!’
Last October, Elon Musk reportedly doled out $35 million on a sprawling Texas compound for his various exes and eleven children to live together, according to insiders.
The billionaire reportedly purchased the multi-mansion Austin estate with his expanding family in mind, hoping the youngest of his children could conveniently grow up around each other.
Four insiders told the New York Times that Musk bought the 14,00-square-foot mansion so his family could live in ‘adjoining properties’, allowing him to ‘schedule time’ for his youngest kids.
And while it is unclear if all Musk’s exes are on board, Shivon Zilis, an executive at Musk’s brain tech start-up Neuralink, has reportedly already moved into one of the mansions on the Austin compound.
Building his staggering $270 billion net worth around renewability, this recently saw his rocket company SpaceX successfully catch its Starship rocket with giant mechanical arms, while his electric car company Tesla has grown to the world’s most valuable automaker.
His prioritization for re-populating the earth has led Musk to have twelve children, and is showing no signs that he is done yet.
