He is preparing to buy Twitter for the modest sum of 44 billion dollars (40 billion euros).
A world-renowned businessman, Elon Musk is known for founding SpaceX and taking over the reins of Tesla.
His private life is no less extraordinary.
At 50, Elon Musk has already fathered seven children, married three times and had many explosive romances.
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Birth of a genius
It all started in 1971. Son of Errol Musk, a South African engineer, and Maye Haldeman, a Canadian model - whose career exploded in his sixties -, Elon Musk grew up in Pretoria.
With a sharp intelligence, the teenager sells his first video game program at the age of 12 for the price of 500 dollars (467 euros).
At the time, he was already reading two books a day.
Five years later, Elon Musk expresses the wish to study in the United States.
He first joined Queen's University in Canada.
All this, to the chagrin of his father, who wanted him to do his military service in South Africa.
The latter will end up cutting him off.
No matter: in the early 1990s, the brilliant Elon - who has since revealed that he has Asperger's syndrome - won a scholarship allowing him to study physics and economics in the United States.
He then enrolled at Stanford University, with a view to obtaining a doctorate in energy physics.
But interrupted his studies to launch his company: in 1995 was born Zip2 (start-up publishing online content) - the first of a long series.
During the following years, Elon Musk acquired the Paypal company (which he sold for 1.5 billion dollars - just over 1.4 billion euros), founded the aeronautics and space flight company SpaceX and enters the capital of the car manufacturer Tesla.
The 2010s will also see the birth of OpenAI, its center dedicated to research on artificial intelligence, and Neuralink, a start-up dedicated to neurotechnology.
In video, Elon Musk makes a Space X presentation with his son on his knees
Three marriages and seven children
In private, the one who regularly appears in the
Forbes
ranking of the 100 most influential people in the world is also a father.
The businessman indeed welcomed six children with the Canadian novelist Justine Wilson, whom he met during his studies at Queen's University and married in 2000. Their eldest son, Nevada Alexander, born in 2002, died in the age of 10 weeks, following a respiratory arrest.
The couple then gave birth to twins, Griffin and Xavier, in 2004. And two years later, to triplets, Kai, Saxon and Damian.
Justine Wilson and Elon Musk will divorce in 2008.
During the following decades, the sentimental life of the billionaire follows a rather chaotic course.
Elon Musk married actress Talulah Riley ( Westworld
) twice
- from 2010 to 2012, then from 2013 to 2016. Before settling on actress Amber Heard, with whom he had an intense love affair in 2017, even going so far as to confide in
Rolling Stone
that the actress broke her heart.
After a brief reconciliation, their final separation was announced in February 2018. Four years later, Elon Musk was called to testify during the trial between Amber Heard and her ex-husband Johnny Depp (the latter also accuses the heroine of '
Aquaman
to have had an affair with the businessman during their marriage).
The hidden baby
His story with the singer Grimes is no less incredible.
In May 2018, the artist and the entrepreneur formalized their relationship on the Met Gala red carpet.
Two years later, Claire Boucher - whose real name - announces the birth of their son X Æ A-XII, alias “X”.
The couple separated in September 2021, in relatively unclear circumstances.
"We are semi-separated, but we still love each other," said Elon Musk in the columns of
Page Six
.
However, the former couple are reconciled and give birth to a second child, three months after their split, as the singer reveals - by accident - in the April issue of
Vanity Fair US
.
Elon Musk and Grimes are now parents of a baby girl, born to a surrogate mother at the end of 2021. A baby named Exa Dark Sideræl – “Y” for friends.
Since then, the duo has broken up again.
In mid-February, the billionaire was spotted on the arm of Natasha Bassett, a 27-year-old Australian actress.
And has obviously not finished wreaking havoc on his private life.
