Most people don't get approached by their billionaire boss with an offer to start a family via IVF. But Shivon Zilis isn't most people — and Elon Musk isn't most bosses.
Zilis, a Yale-educated AI executive at Musk's brain-chip company Neuralink, now shares four children with him. That fact has been public for a while — but the story behind how it happened is still raising eyebrows, mostly because of how open Zilis has been about her decision-making.
"He really wants smart people to have kids, so he encouraged me to," she told Walter Isaacson, author of Musk's 2023 biography. "If the choice is between an anonymous sperm donor or doing it with the person you admire most in the world, for me that was a pretty f—— easy decision. I couldn't possibly think of genes I would prefer for my children."
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That's not a casual endorsement. And Zilis hasn't kept her admiration for Musk a secret.
Back in 2020, she responded to a post on X criticizing Musk by writing, "No one's perfect but I've never met anyone who goes through more personal pain to fight for an inspiring future for humanity… Everyone's entitled to their opinion but mine is that there's no one I respect and admire more."
Zilis first crossed paths with Musk at OpenAI in 2016, where she worked on artificial intelligence research. She later joined Neuralink as director of special projects and eventually followed Musk from Silicon Valley to Austin, Texas — not just for work, but to raise a family. The pair welcomed boy-girl twins, Strider and Azure, via IVF in November 2021. They've since had two more children: a daughter, Arcadia, born in early 2024, and a son, Seldon Lycurgus, in February.
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Despite the four children and deeply personal decisions involved, neither Musk nor Zilis has ever publicly confirmed a romantic relationship. They haven't appeared as a couple, been photographed together in that way, or offered any traditional announcement. What's clear, though, is Zilis's unwavering respect — and Musk's unapologetic strategy.
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Musk, who has 10 other children with three other women, has long voiced concern over population decline. He's repeatedly stated that smart people aren't having enough kids — and that he intends to help fix that. "If people don't have more children, civilization is going to crumble," he warned at the 2021 Wall Street Journal's CEO Council Summit.
Zilis, according to Isaacson's biography, seemed to align with that mission and saw the offer as both personal and purposeful. "It seemed like something that would make him very happy," she told Isaacson.
And if it all seems a little… unconventional, well, that's sort of the Musk brand. While most people weigh the costs of IVF, childcare, college savings, and sleep deprivation, Musk — the world's richest man — has the means and motivation to operate on an entirely different scale. For him, expanding the population isn't just feasible — it's a moral imperative.
So while some use spreadsheets to decide if they can afford a second child, Musk is out here creating custom family trees with handpicked genes, mutual admiration, and a post-apocalyptic vision of civilization to back it all up. For Zilis, the decision was "pretty f—— easy." For everyone else? It's… complicated.
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