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Billionaire Elon Musk's father, Errol, made critical comments about his son's parenting skills prior to a conservative influencer claiming to have given birth to the billionaire's 13th child.
Errol appeared on the Wide Awake podcast Wednesday (February 12), two days before author Ashley St. Clair went public with claims that Elon was the father of her 5-month-old child.
“He hasn’t been a good dad,” Errol said in a TikTok clip from the interview. “The first child was too much with nannies and died in the care of a nanny.”
Elon, who leads President Donald Trump's newly launched Department of Government Efficiency, had previously fathered 12 children, including six with his first wife, Canadian author Justine Wilson, three with singer Grimes and three with Shivron Zilis an executive at his Neuralink company. Musk and Wilson's firstborn son, Nevada, died of sudden infant death syndrome at 10 weeks old in 2002, while Errol claims the other five children each had their own nanny.
“Elon’s gonna shoot me for saying this, but that’s what I think. That’s no good. They were too rich, too many nannies," he said.
“When they got divorced [in 2008], the nannies were six on this side and six on that side,” Errol added. “It was a really weird situation.”
Errol admitted that his son "didn't spend enough time with" his children when asked by host Joshua Rubin whether that was the case. Several critics deemed the elder Musk's comments as "disturbing...hypocrisy," pointing out that he shares a child with his former stepdaughter, Jana Bezuidenhout, in the comment section of the TikTok post.
St. Clair, 26, issued a statement on her X account Friday (February 14) claiming she gave birth to Musk's child five months prior.
"Five months ago, I welcomed a new baby into the world. Elon Musk is the father." she said. "I have not previously disclosed this to protect our child's privacy and safety, but in recent days it has become clear that tabloid media intends to do so, regardless of the harm it will cause.
"I intend to allow our child to grow in a normal and safe environment. For that reason, I ask that the media honor our child's privacy, and refrain from invasive reporting."
Elon, 53, responded "whoa" to an X user claiming St. Clair "plotted for half a decade to ensnare" him, which showed a screengrab of a conversation between the author and Greg Price in which she said she needed "to get Elon Musk's attention for a marriage proposal" and responded "well he actually has 7 kids & goes through women pretty fast" when Price told her it "seems unlikely to work out."
St. Clair told the New York Post that Musk initially sent her a direct message on X and claimed he was "funny" and "down to Earth" during an exclusive interview on Saturday (February 15) in which she said she agreed to keep her pregnancy and her child a secret at Musk's request to protect all parties involved.
"Ashley & Elon have been privately working towards the creation of an agreement about raising their child for some time," said Brian Glicklich, a rep for St. Clair, in a statement shared on his X account. "It is disappointing that a tabloid reporter, who repeatedly ambushed Ashley and her family, made it impossible to complete that process confidentially.
"We are waiting for Elon to publicly acknowledge his parental role with Ashley, to end unwarranted speculation, and Ashley trusts that Elon intends to finish their agreement quickly, in the best interests of the wellbeing and security of the child they share."