The twin babies that Elon Musk fathered with Shivon Zilis, one of his senior employees at his brain chip company Neuralink, were conceived through in vitro fertilisation, according to a report.
Ms Zilis, 36, reportedly told colleagues that she and her 51-year-old billionaire boss were never engaged in any sexual relationship or were ever involved romantically in any way, according to Reuters.
The Canadian-born executive, who works as Musk’s director of operations and special projects at Neuralink, has since told some of her colleagues that she conceived the children with the Tesla CEO through IVF, according to five people familiar with the situation, New York Post reports. The accuracy of Ms Zilis’ account could not be established.
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After working at Neuralink for five years, Ms Zilis gave birth to the twins last November.
The company’s rules prohibit employees from having personal relationships with anyone in a more senior role due to potential conflicts of interest.
But Reuters is reporting that the company management accepted Ms Zilis’ explanation that her arrangement with Mr Musk was non-romantic in nature. She has thus been permitted to continue in her role as director of operations and special projects.
Sources also told Reuters that Ms Zilis and Mr Musk have continued working together in the months since the birth of the twins.
Ms Zilis and spokespeople for Mr Musk and Neuralink did not respond to requests for comment.
The world’s richest man, who has spoken frequently about declining birthrates and the threat they pose to humanity, has confirmed that he is the father of Ms Zilis’ twins. He has fathered 10 children with three different woman, nine of whom are living. (Mr Musk’s first son, Nevada, died in 2002 aged 10 weeks, of SIDS.)
The twins were born a month before Musk and Canadian pop singer Grimes welcomed their second child, a baby girl, via a surrogate.
In April, Ms Zilis and Mr Musk petitioned a Texas court to allow the children to “have their father’s last name and contain their mother’s last name as part of their middle name,” Business Insider reported.
The request was approved by a judge in May.
“Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis,” Mr Musk quipped after Insider reported the birth of the twins.
In another tweet, he wrote: “A collapsing birthrate is the biggest danger civilisation faces by far.”
Experts on corporate governance who were interviewed by Reuters were divided as to whether Musk violated ethical boundaries by having children with Ms Zilis.
Neuralink’s own employee handbook prohibits “personal relationships” and “close personal friendships” between employees and their direct managers.
But the arrangement between Mr Musk and Ms Zilis is an unusual one, the experts said.
“Whatever lawyer wrote this language [in the company code of conduct] did not contemplate this situation,” Nell Minow, vice chair of corporate governance consultancy ValueEdge Advisors, said.
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He added that this case looked to “fall between the cracks” of the spirit of the policy, which aims to avoid conflicts of interest.
Neuralink requires employees engaged in any sort of relationship that could create a conflict of interest to report it to the “people operations manager” so the company can decide what steps to take to mitigate potential problems.
This story was first published on New York Post and is reproduced here with permission
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