It looks like Elon Musk might want to be known as more than just the richest man in the world.
The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX looks confirm a Business Insider report Wednesday that he welcomed a new set of twins with an executive at one of his companies in November, bringing to 10 the total number of children Musk has fathered with three different women since the early 2000s.
“I’m doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis,” Musk tweeted Thursday. “The collapsing birth rate is the greatest danger civilization has ever faced.”
But aside from Musk’s proclamation of helping civilization, he can also claim bragging rights in the world of rich and famous daddies. With the twins, Musk joins Mick Jagger and Nick Cannon as one of the most amazing male celebrities when it comes to producing a large number of offspring with various wives and girlfriends. Shortly after Musk welcomed his twins, he and ex-girlfriend Grimes welcomed the birth of their second child, a daughter, via surrogate.
Actors Eddie Murphy and Mel Gibson can be said to be equally great in this category. Murphy fathered 10 children by five different women, while Mel Gibson fathered nine children through two marriages and a relationship that became notoriously controversial.
Other famous men known for spreading their DNA include Mick Jagger and Nick Cannon. Mick Jagger fathered eight children by five different women, including socialite Bianca Jagger and model Jerry Hall. The Rolling Stones frontman hasn’t let age slow him down either. He was 73 when ballerina Melanie Hamrick gave birth to his eighth child, a son, in 2016.
Meanwhile, Cannon, the actor, rapper and TV host, fathered the first of his nine children in 2011 with singer Mariah Carey, to whom he was married for six years. Beginning in 2017, Cannon quickly began raising his brood with four different women. Sadly, in 2021, his seventh child, a son named Zen with model Alyssa Scott, died of brain cancer at five months old.
This January, Cannon announced that he is expecting a son, his eighth child, with model Bre Thiesi. TMZ also reported last month, Cannon is expecting her nine, due in October, with DJ Abby De La Rosa. Cannon and De La Rosa are now parents to twins born in June 2021.
Over the 4th of July weekend, Cannon offered up a freestyle rap to answer questions about his parenting choices, The Cut reported.
“I gotta say something to all my kids / Your daddy’s gonna love you no matter what / Your momma’s a blessing / There’s no doubt that she is,” Cannon raps during an appearance on Power 106 FM. He also admitted the challenges of parenting with different partners in a clip of his freestyle that he posted on Instagram. He raps, “All my kids will always be friends / Even if their mothers don’t agree / Cannon’s the gang and we in allegiance.”
But perhaps Musk would say that men like Cannon, Jagger, Gibson and Murphy should be congratulated for helping to reverse the decline in the birthrate. On Thursday, the billionaire wrote on Twitter: “I hope you have big families and congrats to those who already have!”
I hope you have big families and congratulations to those who already have!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 7, 2022
Musk first started having children in 2002 with his first wife, Justine Wilson. Sadly, their first child died of sudden infant death syndrome at the age of 10 weeks. Musk and Wilson have five more children: twins born in 2004, followed by triplets in 2006.
In 2018, Musk and Grimes revealed they were dating, and the musician gave birth to their son, eccentrically named X AE A-XII, in May 2020. In March, Grimes revealed of Vanity Fair that they welcomed a second child, a daughter named Exa Dark Sideræl, in December via surrogate, while also sharing that the pair have split but remain friends.
The mother of Musk’s new twins is Siobhan Zillis, director of operations and special projects at Neuralink, according to Business Insider and CNN. Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment, so the nature of his relationship with Zilis, 36, is unknown — other than that they are becoming parents together.
CNN reported that their professional ties date back to at least 2016, when she became an advisor to OpenAI. Musk is one of the co-founders of OpenAI, a nonprofit research lab with a stated mission to “ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity,” CNN said.
Musk first expressed concern about America’s birthrate in May. On his Twitter account, he attached a tweet linking to a Wall Street Journal article about how the U.S. birth rate in 2021 remains below the “replacement level” of 2.1.
The US birth rate has been below minimum sustainable levels for about 50 years pic.twitter.com/v5PSLbvEAE
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 24, 2022
Has Elon Musk surpassed Mick Jagger and Nick Cannon as celebrity’s most fertile man?
