FMNN INVESTIGATES · OPINION & ANALYSIS
His ex-wife, his eldest daughter and the mothers of his children describe Elon Musk in their own words. Then he fled "ruined" California for Texas, spent a fortune to keep Texas red, and watched it turn blue.
By Joseph J. Jackson, Founder of FMNN and author of The Death of the American Dream. Published Nov. 5, 2026. Facts current as of Nov. 4, 2026.
The short version
Musk has at least 14 known children with four women. His eldest daughter calls him "cold" and "uncaring and narcissistic." His responses are included.
The New York Times reported heavy drug use on the 2024 campaign trail. Musk says he is "NOT taking drugs."
Musk spent years on X calling California ruined and moved himself and his companies to Texas. Then he spent about $442 million on the 2026 midterms, at least $225 million in Texas, and Democrats swept Texas's top statewide races anyway.
The Subsidy King: a five-part FMNN Investigates series
The Man at Home and the Trillion (you are here)
Previously: Over four parts, the record has shown public money rescuing Musk's companies, SpaceX launching the government's rockets from Florida's Space Coast, Musk running DOGE, and USAID's closing. This last part is about the man, and the money he made.
What you need to know
This is Part 5 of a five-part opinion and analysis series. The family section sticks to what the people involved said on the record and what documents show, with Musk's responses beside them. FMNN does not name his young children.
Removed, again and again
Look at the record of who has shown Musk the door. Zip2's investors took the CEO job from him. PayPal's board removed him on his honeymoon. [1][2] Trump called him a friend, gave him DOGE, then fell out with him in public and threatened his contracts. Musk left the government in May 2025 after four months. [3][4] California's DMV found his flagship product's name "unambiguously false." [5] And the people who knew him best, his family, have walked away too.
At home: the women and the children
This section is about a public figure's conduct as it has been described on the record by the people involved: his ex-wife, his adult daughter, the mothers of his children, and reporters with documents. FMNN does not name or describe his young children beyond what is necessary. Musk's responses are included.
The first marriage. Musk married Justine Wilson, a fellow Queen's University student, in 2000. In a 2010 Marie Claire essay, she wrote that as they danced at the reception he told her, "I am the alpha in this relationship." When she told him, "I am your wife, not your employee," she wrote, he answered, "If you were my employee, I would fire you." [6] He filed for divorce in 2008. About six weeks later, she wrote, he texted her that he was engaged to a British actress in her early 20s, Talulah Riley. Musk wrote at the time that he met Riley only after filing. [7]
The count. Musk has at least 14 known children with four women: Justine Wilson; the musician Grimes; Shivon Zilis, an executive at his company Neuralink; and the conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair. [8] The Wall Street Journal reported in April 2025 that people close to him believe the real number is much higher, that he calls his children his "legion," and that he has recruited potential mothers through direct messages on X. [9][10]
The daughter who left. His eldest daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson, came out as transgender in 2020, legally changed her name at 18 and cut ties with him. After Musk said in 2024 that his child had been "killed by the woke mind virus," she gave her first interview, to NBC News: "He was cold. He's very quick to anger. He is uncaring and narcissistic." She said he was around "maybe 10% of the time" and yelled at her "viciously" as a fourth grader because her voice was too high. [11][12] In 2025 she called him a "pathetic man-child" in Teen Vogue and said she doesn't know how many siblings she has, because she learns about new ones from the news. [13]
Grimes. Grimes, who had three children with Musk and was in a custody dispute with him for years, pleaded with him publicly on X in February 2025: "Plz respond about our child's medical crisis… This requires immediate attention." She said he had ignored her texts, calls and emails. Earlier she said she had gone five months without seeing one of their children during the dispute. [14][15]
Ashley St. Clair. St. Clair told the Journal that Musk, through his money manager Jared Birchall, offered her $15 million plus $100,000 a month until their son turned 21 if she kept the child secret. Birchall told her other mothers had signed similar deals and warned that going to court "always, always leads to a worse outcome for that woman." When she went public and sued for custody, she said, the $15 million offer was withdrawn and monthly support was cut to about $40,000. A paternity test put the probability at 99.9999%. [9][16] Musk responded to the story by posting "TMZ >> WSJ" and earlier said he had paid her $2.5 million and $500,000 a year. [10][17]
The flight attendant. In 2022, Business Insider reported that SpaceX paid a corporate-jet flight attendant $250,000 in 2018 to settle a claim that Musk exposed himself during an in-flight massage in 2016 and offered to buy her a horse if she would "do more." The account came from a friend's sworn declaration; the settlement included a non-disclosure agreement. Musk called the allegations "utterly untrue" and the story a "politically motivated hit piece." [18]
The drugs
On May 30, 2025, Musk's last day at DOGE, The New York Times reported that his drug use on the 2024 campaign trail "went well beyond occasional use." Citing people familiar with his activities, the Times said he told people he was taking so much ketamine that it was affecting his bladder, that he took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, and that he traveled with a daily pill box of about 20 pills, including ones marked as the stimulant Adderall, per a photo of the box. [19]
Musk's answer on X: "To be clear, I am NOT taking drugs! The New York Times was lying their ass off." He has said before that he took prescription ketamine for a "negative frame of mind," and said he had not taken it since. [20] Asked whether he knew about Musk's "regular drug use," Trump said, "I wasn't." [21]
FMNN can't test anyone. What the record shows is a man who ran the federal cost-cutting effort, with access to agencies that regulate his companies, while the country's most prominent newspaper reported heavy drug use that he denies. The White House never said whether he was drug tested. [22]
The trillion
The feud didn't last. By November 2025, Musk was back at the White House for a state dinner, and by December he was funding Republican House and Senate campaigns again. [23]
In February 2026, SpaceX bought Musk's AI company xAI, which already owned X, in a merger valued at $1.25 trillion. [24] On June 12, SpaceX went public on the Nasdaq. Musk kept about 82% of the voting power. [25] A company that NASA saved in 2008 for $1.6 billion was worth more than $2 trillion by the end of its first day of trading. [26]
Then Musk spent it on Congress. By October, he had put about $366 million into the 2026 midterms, more than the roughly $290 million he spent in 2024. That included $158 million to the Senate Republicans' super PAC and $76 million to his own America PAC. [27][28] His PAC's first midterm money went to Texas, where SpaceX is headquartered, backing Ken Paxton for Senate. [29]
House Democrats had already called for investigations into SpaceX's contracts and his DOGE work, Reuters reported. Republicans blocked several attempts to subpoena him. [27] On Tuesday, Paxton lost to James Talarico, and Democrats won the House and the Senate. [35] (See Texas Turns Blue: Talarico Wins the Senate Seat.) In January, the people who wanted those subpoenas get the gavels.
From "final straw" to blue Texas
This section is opinion and analysis. The facts under it are sourced.
For six years, Elon Musk's favorite villain was California.
In 2020, when local health orders shut Tesla's Fremont plant, he called the restrictions "fascist" and threatened to take Tesla out of the state. [37] That December he said he had moved to Texas, and he sold his California homes. [39][40] In 2021, Tesla moved its headquarters to Austin. [37] Then he bought Twitter, renamed it X, and used the biggest megaphone he owned to tell America the same thing over and over: California is broken. In July 2024 he called a new California school law "the final straw" and announced that SpaceX would move to Starbase, Texas, and X to Austin. About X's San Francisco office, he wrote: "Have had enough of dodging gangs of violent drug addicts just to get in and out of the building." [36] When others said they were leaving too, he predicted "many will follow." [42]
What the move cost him. Nothing. It paid him. Texas has no state income tax, and Bloomberg calculated in 2021 that leaving California could save Musk about $2 billion on his Tesla stock options, though California could still tax the part he earned while living there. [39] And not everything left. Gov. Gavin Newsom pointed out that after the last "move," Tesla put its global engineering and AI headquarters back in California. [38]
What he spent to keep Texas red. In the 2026 midterms, Musk spent about $442 million, The Hill reported, on top of roughly $290 million in 2024. [32][34] At least $225 million went to Texas, according to OpenSecrets, much of it routed through the Senate Leadership Fund to back Ken Paxton. [32][33]
For scale, take George Soros, the billionaire Republicans most often point to as the left's big spender. Soros gave Democrats $128 million in 2022, his biggest midterm, by OpenSecrets' count. Add his roughly $24 million in 2004, the $81 million his Democracy PAC raised for 2020, nearly $72 million for 2024 and $102 million this cycle, and Soros and his PAC come to about $400 million across his five biggest documented cycles. [41] Musk spent nearly twice that in two cycles. FMNN could not find a published lifetime total for Soros, so this compares his biggest cycles, not every dollar he has ever given. A Nov. 4 account of the results in The Spokesman-Review called Musk "the largest individual political donor in modern American history." [34]
What he got. Texas went blue. James Talarico beat Paxton for the Senate. Gina Hinojosa beat Gov. Greg Abbott. Democrats also won the statewide executive races on the ballot, including lieutenant governor, attorney general and railroad commissioner, Texas outlets reported, in a state where no Democrat had won statewide since 1994. [33][43][44][45] Democrats took the House and the Senate. [35] On Wednesday, while the market rose, SpaceX shares fell nearly 4% and Tesla fell 3%. [33] It wasn't the first time: in 2025, Musk said a Wisconsin Supreme Court race "might decide the future of America and Western Civilization." His side lost that one too. [34]
What he said. As the results came in, Musk posted: "Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn't work this time," with a shrug emoji. Then: "Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now." He also reposted comments that appeared to blame the results in Texas and Georgia on demographic change. [33][34]
In FMNN's opinion, that is a crybaby with a rocket company. He spent years and a fortune telling the country California was a lost cause. He moved his home, his money and three companies to Texas to get away from it, and pocketed a tax break on the way out. Then he spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to keep Texas from becoming what he ran from. When Texans voted anyway, he blamed who they are and joked about leaving the planet.
Reality of the Situation
What his defenders say: His private life is nobody's business, and the drug story is a lie.
What the record says:
"His private life is nobody's business." Partly true, which is why this story sticks to what the people involved said on the record and what documents show. But a man who calls his children a "legion," uses company money and staff to settle claims, and asks the country to trust his judgment with its rockets, satellites and budget has made his judgment the public's business. [9][18]
"He's on drugs." Disputed. The Times reported heavy use from multiple sources and a photo; Musk denies current use. [19][20]
"Musk's money wins elections." Not this time. He put at least $225 million into Texas, and Democrats swept the state's top statewide races. [33][44]
"He left California for business reasons, not taxes." Both. He cited lockdowns, a school law and crime. The move also stood to save him about $2 billion in state taxes. [36][37][39]
Reading the Pattern
The official story. A self-made genius beat the odds, the critics and the government.
The record. At every point he was failing, public money arrived: a NASA contract, an Energy Department loan, state tax breaks, regulatory credits. Then he took a job inside the government that pays and polices him.
Who Carried the Story
The $38 billion figure comes from The Washington Post, which built the most complete public count of Musk's government money in February 2025. Reporters Desmond Butler, Trisha Thadani and colleagues noted it is likely an undercount because classified contracts aren't included. [30] Scott Pelley of CBS's 60 Minutes got Musk to say NASA saved him. Biographers Ashlee Vance and Walter Isaacson documented the early years and the PayPal ouster. The Wall Street Journal tracked the Boring Company's abandoned city projects. [31]
Closing
Go back to that phone call. December 2008, a company out of money, a man who couldn't hold the phone. "They saved you." "Yeah, they did."
He was right. They were us. Eighteen years later, the company we saved is worth $2 trillion, the man who owns it is the richest person in history, and he spent 2025 telling the rest of the country that the government can't afford to help them.
Sources
Wikipedia, "Business career of Elon Musk" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_career_of_Elon_Musk
Snopes, "Was Elon Musk Fired From PayPal?" — https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/was-elon-musk-fired-from-paypal/ ; Fox Business, citing Walter Isaacson — https://foxbusiness.com/markets/elon-musk-dethroned-peter-thiel-coup-led-paypal-mafia
Outlook India, "Trump-Musk Feud Ends in $100 Million Republican Midterm Alliance," 2026 — https://www.outlookindia.com/international/trump-musk-feud-ends-in-100-million-republican-midterm-alliance
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Justine Musk, "I Was a Starter Wife," Marie Claire, 2010, as quoted by Unilad Tech — https://www.uniladtech.com/news/elon-musk-brutal-response-wife-said-wasnt-employee-450134-20250327 ; Market Realist — https://marketrealist.com/p/elon-musk-first-wife
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Jerusalem Post, on the WSJ report and Musk's "TMZ >> WSJ" response — https://www.jpost.com/omg/viral-news-from-the-web/article-850743
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