Elon Musk‘s personal life is no less than a soap opera. The tech billionaire, known for his professional achievements, often makes headlines for his personal life. The 53-year-old CEO of Tesla and SpaceX has been married to two women since 2000 and has fathered 14 children from four different women.
However, his most talked about relationship remains with his first wife, Justine Musk, to whom he was married for eight years. They first met in the early 1990s when Justine was a freshman at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. At that time, Justine wasn’t looking for love. In fact, she was recovering from her first love with an older man she left behind in her hometown. “I liked older,” Justine confessed in her blog for Marie Claire.
It was during this time she met Elon Musk, who was a year senior to her. She described him as a “clean-cut, upper-class boy with a South African accent.”
Musk invited her on an ice-cream date, but when she blew him off, he romantically brought her two cones. That’s when she knew Musk wasn’t a man who takes no for an answer.
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Justine Musk, first wife of billionaire Elon Musk, knows a thing or two about wealth and hard work — her ex-husband is a founder of PayPal, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and has an estimated net worth of $248.7… pic.twitter.com/5k5Wy4EuHx
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Both of them were poles apart. While Musk was a man of science, commerce, logic, and numbers, Justine aspired to be a writer. They had nothing in common, and yet there was a spark. When she told him about her ambitions, he not only took her seriously but also seemed impressed.
She wrote in her blog, “It was the first time that a boy found my sense of ambition — instead of my long hair or narrow waist — attractive. Previous boyfriends complained that I was “competitive,” but Elon said I had “a fire in my soul.” When he told me, “I see myself in you,” I knew what he meant.”
After graduation, they went their separate ways. However, destiny brought them together again. In the mid-90s, when Musk was settled in the Silicon Valley, they began dating. Musk was romantic in some of the most dreamy ways. Recalling an incident, Justine wrote, “He took me to a bookstore and handed me his credit card. “Buy as many books as you want,” he said. No man could have said anything sweeter.”
The struggling entrepreneur became wealthy overnight as he sold Zip2. He was now worth $20 million, and Justine feared that he would dump her for a supermodel. But to her surprise, he went down on his knee on a street corner and proposed to her. They got married in January 2000, and Musk made her sign a “financial agreement” which he said wasn’t a prenup.
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“Two months after our wedding, I simply signed the postnuptial agreement. I trusted my husband — why else had I married him? — and I told myself it didn’t matter. We were soul mates. We would never get divorced. A life without Elon was unthinkable,” Justine told.
Justine was so much in love with him that she kept ignoring all the red flags in their relationship. Justine recalls how Musk told her “I am the alpha in this relationship,” while dancing at their wedding reception.
Justine wrote, “He had grown up in the male-dominated culture of South Africa, and the will to compete and dominate that made him so successful in business did not magically shut off when he came home.”
The writer stated that Musk’s judgement always overruled hers and she repeatedly told him, “I’m your wife, not your employee.”
To this, Musk would often say, “If you were my employee, I would fire you.”
They welcomed their first child in 2002 who died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) at the age of 10 weeks. Musk said he didn’t want to talk about the child’s death, but as Justine grieved openly, he labelled her “emotionally manipulative”. Over the years, the couple was blessed with five more children (twins in 2004 and triplets in 2006).
The couple now had a fulfilling life—a marriage of seven years with five healthy kids, a big mansion in Bel Air Hills, five domestic staff members, fancy cars and all the luxuries one can dream of! However, there was a void in their family that the world didn’t know about! Elon was always obsessed with his work, Justine claims. Even when at home, his mind was somewhere else.
Justine wrote, “I longed for deep and heartfelt conversations, for intimacy and empathy. And while I sacrificed a normal family life for his career, Elon started to say that I “read too much,” shrugging off my book deadlines. This felt like a dismissal, and a stark reversal from the days when he was so supportive.”
As time passed, she began to feel that she was insignificant in his eyes. She stated that a car accident in 2008 was a wake-up call for her. Minutes into the accident, she wasn’t thinking if everyone was safe—”It was, My husband is going to kill me.”
Justine said, “And in my mind’s eye, I could suddenly see myself: a woman who’d gotten very thin, and very blonde, stumbling out of a very expensive car with the front-left wheel smashed in.”
“I barely recognized myself. I had turned into a trophy wife — and I sucked at it,” she further added.
Justine was no longer loving her life. She said in the blog, “I could no longer hide my boredom when the men talked and the women smiled and listened. I wasn’t interested in Botox or makeup or reducing the appearance of the scars from my C-sections. And no matter how many highlights I got, Elon pushed me to be blonder. “Go platinum,” he kept saying, and I kept refusing.”
Shortly after the accident, Justine confronted Musk and demanded equality in their relationship. He agreed to do counselling but he had too much on his plate, work-wise. Three sessions into couple’s therapy, he gave her an ultimatum—”Either we fix this marriage today or I will divorce you tomorrow, by which I understood he meant, Our status quo works for me, so it should work for you. He filed for divorce the next morning. I felt numb, but strangely relieved.”
Months after the separation, Justine dyed her hair and cut it, something Musk never allowed! However, even after the divorce she retained the last name Musk for the sake of their children.
