Elon Musk's Ex-Wife Justine Says He Got One Crucial Detail Wrong About Their Son's Death — Another Former Partner Claims She Was Offered $40M to Stay Quiet

A new documentary about Elon Musk brings together people from his personal and professional worlds, but some of its most striking accounts come from two women who knew him privately.

Their claims touch on his marriage, his children, a painful family loss, and an alleged multimillion-dollar agreement. Musk disputes at least one of the major allegations.

Those accounts form part of "Musk," Alex Gibney's four-hour examination of the billionaire, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival on September 8.

Venice Premiere and Scope of the Film

The film, titled "Musk," premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday, September 8, and runs a staggering four hours. Despite the length, it reportedly earned a four-minute standing ovation, with one audience member shouting "Thank you!" once the applause finally died down.

It comes from Oscar- and Emmy-nominated director Alex Gibney, known for tackling corporate scandal, institutional abuse, and political corruption in films like "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" and "Going Clear."

Gibney began working on the project back in 2023, though he admitted at a press conference that the scope grew far beyond what he'd originally planned. "We intended to make a shorter film," he said, according to Variety.

Musk did not participate. He has already dismissed the project as a "hit piece" without watching it, and the film instead relies on interviews with people who know him — plus an AI-generated avatar of Musk built from his own public statements.

The documentary hits U.S. theaters on October 16 via Bleecker Street, followed by a streaming release on HBO Max.

Justine Musk's Account of Her Marriage to Elon

Among the interview subjects is Justine Musk, who married Elon in January 2000 and had six children with him before their 2008 divorce. She has spoken about the relationship before, including in a 2010 Marie Claire essay and a 2017 TED Talk, but detailed public comments from her have remained relatively rare.

Her appearance in "Musk" offers a new account of their years together and some of the private interactions she says shaped the marriage. In the documentary, she described feeling belittled throughout their relationship.

"I learned the term 'gaslighting' through my relationship with Elon," she said, according to Page Six. Justine said he regularly pointed out what he considered her shortcomings. One moment she recalled went all the way back to their wedding.

During their first dance, she said Elon told her, "I am the alpha in this relationship." It was not the first time she had shared that memory. In her Marie Claire essay, Justine also wrote about dismissing the remark at the time, just as she said she later dismissed signing a postnuptial agreement.

Justine also touched on Musk's own insecurities, revealing he was self-conscious about how he dressed. "I can't look cool or hip, because I need to look like an engineer," he reportedly told her, per People.

But the documentary eventually reaches a much more painful part of their history — and one detail in particular that Justine says Elon later described incorrectly in public.

Disputing the Final Moments of Their Firstborn

Justine and Elon welcomed son Nevada in 2002, and he died just 10 weeks later of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS. The couple later had five more children together: twins Vivian and Griffin, followed by triplets Kai, Saxon, and Damian.

Years after Nevada's death, Elon discussed what happened in a social media post. It is that public account that Justine now disputes. In the documentary, she says she was the one holding their son in his final moments, not Elon.

It's a small detail, but one she's apparently carried for over two decades, and choosing to correct it publicly, more than 20 years later, says something about how differently the two remember that day.

Her interview then turns to another of their children and a relationship that has already become the subject of public statements from Elon himself.

Strained Family Dynamics and Estrangement

Vivian, one of Justine and Elon's twins, is transgender. Elon has publicly said he lost his daughter to the "woke mind virus." Justine said in the documentary that he has "never tried to repair things" with Vivian, adding that reconciliation simply isn't "in his nature."

But she also revealed a softer moment buried inside the fallout. She claims Elon once asked her to pass along a message to their daughter: "I'll always love her." Justine says she delivered it. According to her account, Elon cut off Vivian's health insurance the very next day.

Justine also claimed Elon refers to the mothers of his children in blunt terms. "The breeders are interchangeable," she said in the film, per Variety.

Ashley St. Clair and the 'Legion of Children'

Vivian and Nevada aren't Musk's only children. He shares three kids with musician Grimes, one with executive Shivon Zilis, and — most recently — a son named Romulus with former right-wing influencer Ashley St. Clair, born in 2025.

St. Clair also sat for an interview in the documentary, and she was present at its Venice press conference. She described how her relationship with Musk began: he told her she should have more children, then picked her up on his private jet.

She recalled that on the night they met, as they were falling asleep, he was listening to a podcast about Kublai Khan — a descendant of Genghis Khan believed to have fathered at least 47 children. She claims Musk later messaged her that they should have a "legion of children before the civil war," per Page Six.

The Alleged $40 Million Non-Disclosure Agreement

As their relationship deteriorated, St. Clair alleges she was presented with a non-disclosure agreement worth $40 million total — $15 million up front, plus $100,000 a month for either 20 or 21 years, depending on which of her accounts is cited.

She claims the offer came through Musk's wealth manager, Jared Birchall, after Musk had initially instructed him to simply "wire Ashley $15 million for a home and reserve capital." According to St. Clair, that arrangement later evolved into a two-hour call in which Birchall explained an NDA would be required.

She says she refused. "[I was] making the moral decision," she said. "I had said to him, 'I would rather go to a studio apartment with both of my children than sign this.'"

St. Clair went on to sue Musk for sole custody of Romulus in February 2025. Musk has since said he's seeking full custody himself, after St. Clair allegedly voiced support for the trans community.

Romulus is one of Musk's 14 known children. His children named in the provided sources also include Nevada, Vivian, Griffin, Kai, Saxon, Damian, X Æ A-12, Exa, Strider, Azure, Techno, Arcadia, and Seldon Lycurgus.

His children are with four partners: Justine Musk, musician Grimes, Shivon Zilis, and St. Clair. The documentary uses Musk's family relationships as one part of a much broader portrait of his life.

Speaking about the decision to turn down the NDA and appear in the documentary instead, St. Clair said, "When you're offered something like that [to stay quiet], it really causes a debate in your head about what your speech means and how valuable that is and why do they want to offer me this amount of money to not speak?"

St. Clair's Warnings Regarding Influence on X

St. Clair didn't stop at their relationship. She also weighed in on Musk's influence over political discourse through X, the platform he acquired in 2022.

Asked whether she believes Musk fears a civil war or is actively stoking one, she didn't hold back. "Whatever it is, what he's doing with this platform on X cannot be ignored, because he is stoking flames that don't exist in the real world," she said.

"I do believe that he is causing deliberate division that may be catastrophic if it's not regulated or tamed, or if we don't do our part in putting it down," she continued.

The Documentary Turns to Musk's Father

Gibney also secured an interview with Musk's father, Errol Musk, a businessman and politician. The film examines an unstable and sometimes violent childhood, including Elon's experiences with bullying.

Errol recalls one incident in which Elon was beaten so severely at school that his face was unrecognizable. According to Errol's account, he later learned that the beating followed Elon telling another boy, whose father had died by suicide, that the father's decision was "stupid."

Errol also describes his son's childhood interest in comic books. In another story, he says one of Elon's friends suddenly died in front of them while Elon continued reading his book. The documentary also addresses serious allegations made against Errol himself.

In 2025, five of his children and stepchildren accused him of sexual abuse. Errol denies those allegations and also rejects the film's characterization of violence in the family, saying he "never hit" his children.

Despite the documentary's scrutiny of his son, Errol ends his interview with a firm prediction about him: "Do not bet against Elon. You're going to lose."

The Investor Behind the Inventor

The documentary also challenges Musk's public image as an inventor, arguing his real skill lies in driving up stock valuations through his own statements — not in building the technology itself.

Tesla co-founder Martin Eberhard, who is not Musk despite popular belief, says in the film that most people wrongly assume Musk started the company. "He has an ego problem," Eberhard says, adding that he regrets ceding so much control to him.

The film also examines Tesla's Autopilot feature, tying it to more than 60 deaths and related lawsuits, and argues Musk's promises about self-sustaining Mars colonies within 20 years ignore the planet's lack of oxygen and high radiation levels.

Elon Musk Denies Claims and Blasts Director

Musk has made his feelings about the film clear, though notably, most of his anger has landed on Gibney rather than the women speaking out. "He has ZERO integrity," Musk wrote on X. "Horrible human."

He also took aim at the people Gibney chose to interview, claiming the director "just assembled a hit list of people who either have an axe to grind or don't even know me."

As for St. Clair's NDA claims specifically, Musk is denying them outright. He told TMZ that she "was never offered that and has a history of making false claims," and he repeated the same denial in a post on X.

Interestingly, Musk hasn't turned that same hostility toward Justine. In a January post on X, he called his first wife "an amazing woman" — even as her account of their marriage, and their son's final moments, plays out on screen for the world to see.

"Musk" opens in theaters October 16.