Elon Musk; Justine Musk.Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty;
Justine Musk, born Justine Wilson, married future billionaireElon Muskin January 2000 after knowing each other for almost a decade.
Elon has since gone on to marryBritish actress Talulah Riley twice,date actress Amber Heardand welcome two children withsinger Grimes.
Though Justine and Elon areno longer together, they still maintain shared custody of their sons. Today, the Canadian-born fantasy author leads a private life with her children despite hervery public ex, who she first met while they were both attending college in Canada.
So who is Elon’s first wife? Here’s everything to know about Justine Musk and her relationship with the Tesla and Space X CEO.
She met Elon in college
Justine met her future husband Elon while the two were students attending Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada.
In a 2010 essay published inMarie Claire, Justine recalled meeting Elon for the first time during her first year of college: “A fellow student a year ahead of me, he was a clean-cut, upper-class boy with a South African accent who appeared in front of me one afternoon as I was leaping up the steps to my dorm. He said we’d met at a party I knew I hadn’t been to. (Years later, he would confess that he had noticed me from across the common room and decided he wanted to meet me.)”
She turned Elondownwhen he asked her out
Elon transferred after two years to the University of Pennsylvania and graduated in 1995, but they weren’t exactly in a long-distance relationship. In fact, Justine turned him down initially as he pursued her.
“He invited me out for ice cream. I said yes, but then blew him off with a note on my dorm-room door,” she wrote in her post-separationMarie Claireessay. “Several hours later, my head bent over my Spanish text in an overheated room in the student center, I heard a polite cough behind me. Elon was smiling awkwardly, two chocolate-chip ice cream cones dripping down his hands. He’s not a man who takes no for an answer.”
Elon continued to send Justine roses even after he’d transferred, and during one of his visits back to Canada, she finally agreed to have dinner with him.
By graduation, however, the pair had gone their separate ways. Justine obtained a degree in English literature and later moved to Japan to teach English as a second language (ESL). After a year, she returned to Canada where she began bartending and working on her novel.
As she recalled inMarie Claire, Justine told her sister that if Elon reached back out to her, she would reconsider their relationship. The tech entrepreneur called her up one week later. The couple reconnected and Justine moved to California to be with Elon.
She is a modern fantasy author
She is also the author of several short stories. Her story “Smalltown Canadian girl” was published inThe House that Made Me: Writers Reflect on the Places and People that Defined Themin 2016.
Her first son passed away at a young age
Two years after getting married, Justine and Elon welcomed their first child together, Nevada Alexander, in 2002. Shortly after his birth, he passed away from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
“Nevada went down for a nap, placed on his back as always, and stopped breathing,” she wrote in herMarie Claireessay. “By the time the paramedics resuscitated him, he had been deprived of oxygen for so long that he was brain-dead.”
“He spent three days on life support in a hospital in Orange County before we made the decision to take him off it. I held him in my arms when he died,” she continued.
In November 2022,Elon tweetedabout their son’s death in response to inquiries of why he won’t allow Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist Alex Jones back on Twitter. “My firstborn child died in my arms. I felt his last heartbeat,” he wrote. “I have no mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics or fame.”
Justinerefuted his claimin her own post a few days later, stating, “A SIDS-related incident that put him on life support. He was declared brain-dead. And not that it matters to anyone except me, because it is one of the most sacred and defining moments of my life, but I was the one who was holding him.”
She shares five children with Elon
In April 2004,the couple welcomed twinsVivian and Griffin.
After Vivian and Griffin, the couple welcomed three more children in 2006. Justine confirmed in her2017 TedTalkthat the triplets – Kai, Saxon and Damian – were also conceived via IVF.
Justine and Elon tried couples counseling before Elon filed for divorce
She shares custody of their children with Elon
In aBusiness Insiderop-ed published in 2010 titled Correcting The Record About My Divorce, the SpaceX founder explained how he was coparenting with his ex two years after their separation: “Custody of our five children is split evenly. Almost all of my non-work waking hours are spent with my [children], and they are the love of my life.”
She got along with Elon’s future wife
Alberto E. Rodriguez/WireImage; Ryan Miller/Getty
In her 2010 essay, Justine wrote that despite being “estranged” from Elon, she does regret their marriage or their divorce: “I’ve worked through some anger, both at Elon for rendering me so disposable, and at myself for buying into a fairy tale when I should have known better.”
source: people.com
