Musk has four children with Shivon Zilis - twins Strider and Azure (born in 2021), a daughter Arcadia (born in February 2024), and son Seldon Lycurgus. Photo: X screengrab
'My partner Shivon is half-Indian, son's middle name is Sekhar': Elon Musk
Musk said his partner Shivon Zilis was given up for adoption when she was a baby and grew up in Canada. Zilis is now director of operations and special projects at his AI company Neuralink
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said his partner Shivon Zilis is “half-Indian” and one of their children’s middle name is “Sekhar” after the Nobel laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.
“One of my sons with her is, his middle name is Sekhar, after Chandrasekhar,” Musk said in an interview with investor and entrepreneur Nikhil Kamath, founder of Zerodha, on his show People by WTF.
S Chandrasekhar was a renowned Indian-American astrophysicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983 “for his theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars”.
When asked if Zilis had spent any time in India, Musk said she was given up for adoption when she was a baby and grew up in Canada.
"I think her father was like an exchange student at the university, or something like that. I'm not sure of the exact details, but, just kind of thing where I don't know... she was given up for adoption,” he said.
Who is Shivon Zilis?
Zilis is a Director of Operations and Special Projects at Musk’s AI company Neuralink. She joined the company in 2017. She graduated from Yale University with a degree in Economics and Philosophy, and was also a goalkeeper in the university’s ice hockey team.
Zilis grew up in Ontario, Canada. She worked at IBM and Bloomberg, and shifted her focus to artificial intelligence when she joined OpenAI in 2016.
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She once described Neuralink as “the most complicated but also fascinating thing I’ve ever encountered in my life”.
Musk has four children with Zilis - twins Strider and Azure (born in 2021), a daughter Arcadia (born in February 2024), and son Seldon Lycurgus.
Musk’s praise for Indian talent
During the same episode with Kamath, Musk spoke highly of the role of Indian professionals in America.
“America has been an immense beneficiary of talent from India, but that seems to be changing now,” said Musk.
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His comments have come at a time when Indians are finding it increasingly more difficult to realise their “American dream” due to increasing US visa restrictions and the unpredictability surrounding visa policies.
(With agency inputs)