Elon Musk has been thrust into the spotlight once again, this time over allegations that he fathered children with one of his employees…
Now, the billionaire philanthropist already has a lot of children, eight to be exact…
Or so we thought!
Scroll on to find out all the latest.
Elon Musk is the complete embodiment of a classic eccentric billionaire.
Being the founder, CEO, and Chief Engineering Designer of not only Tesla but SpaceX too, he has an awful lot going for him.
As it currently stands, Tesla is the world’s leading electric car company…
With almost 500,000 vehicles being bought and distributed in 2020 alone. The company is pioneering the future of electric car travel with Musk as its CEO.
And then there’s Space X…
Space X became the first private company to successfully launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft, as well as the first to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS).
And due to his accomplishments, Musk has cashed in a serious amount of money since starting his businesses…
Back in January 2021, according to the BBC, Musk finally became the richest man in the world, knocking Jeff Bezos out of 1st place.
Quite the achievement, I know!
However, the feud between Musk and Bezos had been ongoing all year, with the pair yo-yo-ing between 1st and 2nd place.
Well, until late last year…
Musk saw a jump of 4.9 percent for the stock price of Tesla at the start of the year – an increase that came just days after finishing the first trading session of the year where they saw an increase of 3.4 percent.
Musk’s net worth subsequently soared shortly after to a staggering $188 billion, as per Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.
And with Jeff Bezos’ net worth standing at $187 billion, Elon Musk was ultimately placed as the world’s richest man.
Things just kept getting better for Musk, and as of September 7th, he was reportedly worth over $200 billion…
Making him the 3rd person in the world to ever reach that milestone, behind Jeff Bezos and Bernard Arnault, CEO of French luxury brands Moët, Hennessy, and Louis Vuitton.
A great achievement for Musk!
And of course, he went about the news in the most typical “Elon Musk” way.
In response to the news, he simply tweeted, “How strange”…
Before adding, “Well back to work.”
Then, almost a month after beating Bezos and becoming the world’s richest man…
He secured his position in 1st place.
On October 25th, 2021, Musk left his competitors in the dust as he reportedly gained a further $36 million…
Taking him up to a whopping $269 billion according to Forbes.
However, despite being crowned the richest man in the world, it hasn’t all been sunshine and rainbows for the CEO…
In 2021 alone, he split from his long-time girlfriend Grimes, as well as having to pay up for some unpaid taxes due to unrealized gains in Tesla stock. So all in all, it’s been a choppy year.
Now, Elon really did make the headlines an awful lot last year.
And it was always in celebration of his success.
He started this year off right, too. The $11 billion in taxes he paid have definitely been a thing of the past for him because he almost tripled what he paid in 2021, and it was only the beginning of 2022.
How? You might ask…
It’s all down to his Tesla company.
In 2021, Tesla manufactured 936,000 vehicles, allowing for a rise in stock prices, as per LADbible.
And to put his riches into perspective…
By Musk paying $11 billion in taxes last year, he gave 0.0036 percent of his earnings away. Yep, it might make you want to cry yourself to sleep, but that’s the truth.
And now, Musk is showing us all just how wealthy he truly is…
By bidding $44 billion for Twitter, which he already had a 9% acquisition in.
Musk wrote in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Committee: “I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.
“However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.”
Yep, that’s right, Musk met with Twitter executives to discuss the possibility of taking on the company.
As per the Wall Street Journal, he got financing for $46.5 billion in order to make it happen.
And they accepted!
As impossible as this might sound, there was a reason why his offer was too good to miss…
According to the WSJ, Twitter shareholders wanted a payout from the company, so his bid couldn’t have come at a better time.
Musk has already made it clear that he wants to make some changes to the site…
One being longer Tweets and another being the excessive amount of ads being toned down. He also suggested that the site would be better off going private.
Investors of the company have previously shared their reluctance to sell to Musk, but have since come around…
So you’re looking at the new owner of Twitter!
Musk’s acquisition of Twitter could mean that some huge changes are on the way.
One of which will be that Twitter will be a privately held company, though this doesn’t mean many regulations change, as per Forbes.
Of course, Musk’s acquisition of the site has received a very mixed response and left many people asking questions.
Actor and filmmaker, Rob Reiner queried: “Now that Elon Musk is buying Twitter, the question for all of us is: Will he allow a Criminal who used this platform to lie and spread disinformation to try to overthrow the US Government to return and continue his Criminal activity? And if he does, how do we combat it?”
While another person expressed their worry…
“I worry that Elon Musk buying twitter might ruin this platform’s reputation for friendly, good-natured and respectful exchanges of views,” they wrote.
But, for others, Musk’s acquisition is a positive…
Including for Tucker Carlson who has had his Twitter account reinstated.
Just hours after Musk’s purchase was announced, Carlson’s Twitter account was reinstated.
It comes after he was removed from Twitter a matter of weeks ago after it was found that he violated its rules.
Carlson announced his return to the platform with a very simple tweet.
“We’re back,” he wrote.
According to UNILAD, Carlson spoke about Musk’s purchase on Tucker Carlson Tonight where he described it as “big news.”
“The reason that today’s sale of Twitter is big news, the reason it could turn out to be a pivot point in our history, is that Elon Musk does not agree with the rest of the billionaires in the tech business,” he said. “He thinks everyone should be allowed to talk. Including people who disagree with him.”
He also hit the headlines for something huge, albeit not that surprising…
Musk is set to become the world’s first trillionaire by 2024.
Finance experts have said that although the billionaire is doing well with the ventures he has in his name…
Acquiring Twitter has pushed him ahead, meaning that he’s set to become even richer in the future… Like we’re surprised, right?
So, where will Musk be in 2 years?
Well, he could have up to $1.3 trillion by 2024, as reported by Joe.
Musk will be the first person to reach the milestone of being a trillionaire.
And that’s at the age of fifty-two years old. But, that’s not the most impressive part. Most people become a millionaire by the age of fifty-one, and by then, Musk will more than likely be a trillionaire.
According to the news outlet, the procurement and business spend software company has put into perspective just how well Musk is doing.
“Musk’s fortune has shown an annual average increase of 129 percent,” they said. And this increase has occurred since 2017.
Many people have shared their opinions…
“How is Elon Musk on the way to trillionaire status while we in a whole recession?!?!” one person questioned.
“If Elon Musk becomes a trillionaire and Yorkshire is still in poverty, the world has failed,” somebody else voiced about a county in England.
Another said that they “hoped” Musk would become a trillionaire.
But it seems one important person in Musk’s life isn’t impressed by his success and has even stated they want nothing to do with him.
Musk’s transgender daughter has filed to change her name from Xavier Musk to Vivian Jenna Wilson, after her mom Justine Wilson, who was married to Musk from 2000 to 2008.
In the documents, which were filed in L.A. County, she states that she wants to identify as female.
But that isn’t the only reason for her name change…
The reason she put as to why she wants to change her name is “Gender Identity”…
And also “the fact that I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.”
Ouch!
She has since been granted a name change and a gender change.
The documents, seen by TMZ, show that Musk’s daughter will be granted a birth certificate that reflects the changes in their life.
Since then, Musk has come under fire for apparently fathering ‘secret’ children with one of his employees.
According to a report that has been made public, Musk had twins last year with Shivon Zilis, who was working at his OpenAI company at the time.
The documents, obtained by Insider, show that Musk and Zilis filed to change their children’s last names to their middle names back in April.
The story states that the “court documents obtained by Insider show that the tech mogul Elon Musk quietly had twins last November with one of his top executives, Shivon Zilis. In April, Musk, 51, and Zilis, 36, filed a petition to change the twins’ names in order to ‘have their father’s last name and contain their mother’s last name as part of their middle name.’”
According to the report, the “twins were born weeks before Musk and Claire Boucher, the musician who performs as Grimes, had their second child via surrogate in December.”
Which makes the situation even messier for Musk.
Zilis is currently the director of operations for Neuralink, after joining back in 2017.
Details on their relationship are still unclear.