Last month, Insider published a explosion report tells the story of a former SpaceX flight attendant who accuses SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk of exposing herself and luring her to sex in 2016 and for whom the company paid $250,000 to have sex. keep silent. Musk immediately labeled the story “a politically motivated hit,” while SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell defended Musk in a follow-up company-wide email. reported by CNBC in which she wrote: “I personally believe the allegations are untrue; not because I work for Elon, but because I have worked closely with him for 20 years and have never seen or heard anything similar to these allegations.”
Now, a new Insider report, much more damaging just emerged that puts Shotwell – and everyone inside Musk running various companies – in a very uncomfortable position.
According to a story published late this afternoon: “Court documents obtained by Insider show tech mogul Elon Musk quietly gave birth to twins last November to one of his top executives. his head, Shivon Zilis. In April, Musk, 51, and Zilis, 36, filed a request to change the twins’ names to “have the father’s last name and include the mother’s last name as part of their middle names.” The order was approved this May by a judge in Austin, Texas. . . The twins were born a few weeks before Musk and Claire Boucher, the musician who performed as Grimes, had their second child via surrogate in December.”
Zilis (or someone acting on her behalf) has removed any mention of Neuralink from website about her background, as well as breaking her down LinkedIn page.
Until recently, the same site said that the work experience of Zilis – a Yale graduate who started his career at IBM, then invested on behalf of the venture site Bloomberg Beta was Bloomberg backing until early 2016 – includes Neuralink, Tesla and OpenAI.
Of course, all three have deep ties to Musk, who founded Neuralink, co-founded OpenAI, and took the helm of Tesla in 2008.
Specifically, Insider said, Zilis first met Musk in 2016 when she was a director at OpenAI, where she is currently the youngest member of the company’s board of directors.
In 2017, she said she joined Tesla as a project manager.
Today, Zilis serves as Neuralink’s director of operations and special projects, where Musk is co-CEO.
Insider adds that Zilis previously worked as a project manager in the CEO’s office.
The agency also said Zilis was recently floated as one of the people Musk could tap to run Twitter following the acquisition.
TechCrunch has not independently verified the Insider’s account. Meanwhile, Musk, who is usually very active on Twitter and doesn’t respond to Insider requests for comment (nor does Zilis), is still a mom, despite last month tweeting that the falling birth rate in the US is a “disaster demographic,” added, “I mean, I’m doing my part haha”.
The biggest question the story raises, aside from how many children Musk intends to father — he has at least nine children with various partners, it seems — is whether any of these companies exist. Is there an association policy that prohibits romantic relationships between a manager and a reporting employee?
While most companies of the size of Tesla and SpaceX, prohibit dating relationships between employees two levels apart in the chain of command, Musk is not known as someone who follows the norm. standard.
However, even if Neuralink, Tesla and OpenAI (where Musk separate yourself in 2019) there’s no policy to prevent fraternity, it’s obviously a big distraction, bad for morale, and it could open companies up to major lawsuits from Zilis if At some point, she decided that he was abusing his power. hold the position of Managing Director.
It also may not be properly reviewed by the US government, which is already cold towards Tesla under Biden’s management.)
The reported development also makes boards of directors at Musk’s companies look surprisingly loose and puts defenders like Shotwell in the inevitable position of having to reassure employees that Musk has the same morality with them. No doubt she will be asked to do it tonight.
We don’t envy her having to write the company-wide follow-up email.
