Honestly, trying to keep track of Elon Musk’s family tree is like trying to follow a SpaceX launch schedule—it changes fast, there are a lot of moving parts, and occasionally there’s a bit of a public explosion. If you’re asking elon musk kids how many is the magic number right now, the answer is 14.
Yeah, 14.
It’s a lot. Especially for a guy who is simultaneously trying to colonize Mars, fix the birth rate crisis, and run about five different billion-dollar companies. He’s been very vocal about the "underpopulation crisis," and he’s definitely walking the walk. He once said that if people don’t have more children, civilization is going to crumble. Mark his words.
But it’s not just the number that’s wild; it’s the names, the moms, and the very different ways these kids are being raised. From Ivy League-bound teenagers to toddlers with names that sound like Wi-Fi passwords, the Musk household (or households, plural) is anything but typical.
The First Chapter: Justine Wilson and the Six Kids
The story really starts back in 2000. Elon married Canadian author Justine Wilson. They had their first son, Nevada Alexander, in 2002. Tragically, Nevada passed away at just 10 weeks old from SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). It’s a piece of his history that Musk rarely talks about, but it clearly shaped his approach to family.
After that, they turned to IVF.
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First came the twins, Griffin and Vivian, in 2004. Then came the triplets—Kai, Saxon, and Damian—in 2006. That’s five boys in two years. You’ve probably heard about Vivian; she made headlines in 2022 when she legally changed her name and gender, essentially severing all ties with her father. She told the court she didn't want to be "related to my biological father in any way, shape or form." It’s been a pretty public and painful rift.
The other four boys? They’re mostly ghosts. They stay out of the spotlight. They attended Ad Astra (now Astra Nova), the experimental school Musk founded because he didn't like how traditional schools were teaching his kids.
The Grimes Era: X, Y, and Tau
Then things got... experimental. When Musk started dating the musician Grimes (Claire Boucher) in 2018, the internet went into a tailspin. They have three kids together, and the naming conventions got very "Cyberpunk 2077."
- X Æ A-12 (nicknamed X): Born in 2020. You’ve seen this kid. He’s the one usually sitting on Elon’s shoulders at rocket launches or appearing in the Oval Office. His name had to be tweaked to X Æ A-Xii to comply with California law.
- Exa Dark Sideræl (nicknamed Y): She arrived via surrogate in late 2021.
- Techno Mechanicus (nicknamed Tau): His existence was a total secret until Walter Isaacson’s biography dropped in 2023.
The relationship with Grimes has been rocky, to say the least. There have been custody battles, tweets, and a lot of back-and-forth about where the kids should live. It’s a high-tech soap opera.
The Neuralink Connection: Shivon Zilis
This is where it gets kind of complicated. While he was still technically with Grimes, Musk also had children with Shivon Zilis, a top executive at Neuralink.
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In November 2021—literally weeks before his daughter Y was born via surrogate—Zilis gave birth to twins, Strider Sekhar Sirius and Azure Astra Alice. Then, in early 2024, they had a daughter named Arcadia. Most recently, in early 2025, Zilis announced the birth of their fourth child together, a son named Seldon Lycurgus.
Basically, between November 2021 and early 2025, Musk added six kids to the roster.
The Surprise Addition: Ashley St. Clair
Just when everyone thought they had the math figured out, conservative influencer and author Ashley St. Clair entered the chat. In early 2025, she revealed that she and Musk had welcomed a son named Romulus in September 2024.
This brings the official "known" count to 14.
Why elon musk kids how many matters for his legacy
People focus on the names because they’re weird, but there’s a philosophy behind this. Musk isn't just "having kids." He's trying to engineer a future. He’s obsessed with the idea that "smart people" need to procreate to ensure the survival of consciousness.
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Zilis actually defended the decision to have kids with him, saying that if the choice is between an anonymous sperm donor or the person you admire most in the world, it was an easy call for her.
But it’s not all sunshine and rocket ships. The rift with Vivian is a massive blind spot in his "save civilization" narrative. It raises the question: can you save the world if you can't maintain a relationship with your own daughter? It’s a nuance that often gets lost in the memes.
What to expect next
Don't expect the number to stay at 14 forever. Musk is 54, he’s the richest man on Earth, and he’s convinced he’s on a mission to save the species. If you're trying to keep up, here’s what you should actually do:
- Watch the legal filings: Most of these births weren't "announced" by a PR team; they were discovered through name-change petitions in Texas and California courts.
- Check the biographies: Walter Isaacson’s book was the first to reveal "Tau." New books or deep-dive articles from people like Ashlee Vance often contain the next clue.
- Follow the mothers: Mothers like Grimes and Shivon Zilis are often the ones who provide the real-time updates on X (formerly Twitter).
The Musk family is a living experiment in non-traditional family structures. Whether it’s a stroke of genius or a recipe for future drama is something we won't really know for another twenty years.
To stay truly updated on the ever-changing count, your best bet is to monitor public court records in Travis County, Texas, where many of the more recent paternity and name-change documents have originated. Record-keeping for the world's most famous billionaire is, ironically, a very manual process.