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Elon Musk and Grimes
(L) Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images (R) Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images

Why Grimes is suing Elon Musk, explained

The petition was filed in the same month it was revealed the ex-couple has had a third child together.

Canadian singer Grimes, born Claire Boucher, is apparently suing her baby daddy, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, due to not being able to see their youngest son, Techno Mechanicus, or Tau for short. Until recently, Tau’s existence had been kept under wraps, similarly to what they’d done for their second child, Exa Dark Sideræl Musk, who was born in 2022. Musk and Grimes have had an on-and-off relationship for four years, and have welcomed 3 children together, a girl and two boys.

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Grimes’ filing of the petition to establish parental rights, which occurred in California last Friday, Sept. 29, comes after she surprisingly publicly tweeted at Walter Isaacson, the author who published an over 600-page-long biography on Elon Musk. Grimes’ tweet, which has since been deleted but TMZ screenshot, read: “Tell Shivon to unblock me and tell Elon to let me see my son or plz respond to my lawyer. I have never even been allowed to see a photo of these children until this moment, despite this situation utterly ripping my family apart.” The lady the musician refers to is Shivon Zilis, an executive at the neurotechnology company Musk founded in 2016, Neuralink, and who had Musk’s twins via sperm donation in 2021, while Grimes was pregnant with Exa. On Sept. 10, Grimes tweeted again, revealing that she had managed to converse with Zilis and that it had gone well, writing:

“I spoke with Shivon at length finally, which was long overdue.  This wasn’t her fault, plz don’t be angry at her!  We respect each other a lot and we’re excited to become friends and have the kids grow up together.

I truly apologize for responding to Walter like that.  As u can imagine, that was a very gut level reaction to a thing that has been very hard for me.  Communication about the twins wasn’t handled super well in the past, but I now totally understand what happened and totally forgive the situation. 

Women are so often pitted against each other.  Speaking with Shivon, it’s very evident  she’s an amazing human and we both just want what’s best for our kids.”

The situation as of now

Although it does appear that Grimes and Zilis have solved things amongst themselves, the same cannot yet be said for the singer and her billionaire ex-lover. The petition filed by Grimes is fairly common among unmarried parents, aiming to legally establish who the children’s parents are. This petition is often filed concurrently with demands for child support and visitation rights, something which, as of Wednesday, Sept. 4, Grimes has not yet done, and is still unclear whether she will. Nor has Elon or his lawyer publicly responded to Grimes’ petition, although, there most likely will be some updates in the coming weeks.


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Author
Image of Margarida Bastos
Margarida Bastos
Margarida has been a content writer for nearly 3 years. She is passionate about the intricacies of storytelling, including its ways of expression across different media: films, TV, books, plays, anime, visual novels, video games, podcasts, D&D campaigns... Margarida graduated from a professional theatre high school, holds a BA in English with Creative Writing, and is currently working on her MA thesis.