Meet Shivon Zilis, Elon Musk’s baby mama who had twins: the tech whizz met the world’s richest man and Tesla CEO through her AI work – and fangirls over him on Twitter

Jul 9 , 2022

Elon Musk had twins with Shivon Zilis in November 2021, it was recently revealed. Photos: Wikipedia, @arielpaper_/Instagram

Shivon Zilis is on the board of OpenAI, an AI research organisation that Elon Musk co-founded, and is also with Neuralink, which works to solve brain and spine problems

Zilis, who loves skiing and the outdoors, gave birth to Musk’s twins last November – just a month before he welcomed his second child with singer Grimes

Shivon Zilis is a respected AI researcher and project leader, often being asked to speak at congresses about her journey with AI and her vision of humanity’s future. But this week, she rocketed to global notoriety after it was revealed that she had welcomed twins with the world’s richest person, Elon Musk. The twins were reportedly born in November last year. But just one month later, Musk welcomed his second child with singer Grimes via a surrogate. He also has triplets and twins from his first marriage to author Justine Wilson.

The surprise twin revelation came after Zilis and the Tesla and SpaceX CEO reportedly filed court papers for the twins to take on the Musk surname, with Zilis’ surname becoming their second name. Zilis is 36 and Musk is 51.

Shivon Zilis is a respected AI researcher. Photo: @shivon/Twitter

But just who is the woman who has grabbed headlines for years, first for her take on AI and now as the secret bae to one of the world’s most controversial yet lauded thinkers? Meet Zilis, the Canadian techie who loves animals and hanging out with her pals.

She’s an AI queen

Shivon Zilis in the centre. Photo: @shivon/Twitter

Zilis’ Twitter bio reveals that she is interested in artificial intelligence, biological intelligence and “whatever exists in between and beyond”. According to The Washington Post, Zilis is on the board of OpenAI, an AI research organisation that Musk co-founded. In 2011, she joined an emerging venture project Bloomberg Beta as a founding member. Her role was to help decide whether machine learning start-ups could get the go-ahead.

Her role at Neuralink

Shivon Zilis is a director at Neuralink. Photo: @shivon/Twitter

Last year, Zilis spoke at the Canadian Undergraduate Conference on AI and said she spent time focusing on watching AI unfold “in the best way possible”. She said Neuralink was working to solve brain and spine problems. Her LinkedIn profile lists her as the director of operations and special projects at Neuralink.