11 Things Elon Musk's Exes Have Revealed About What It's Like To Date Him
Dating Elon Musk might be different than you'd expect.
Kathy Hutchins / Andrea Raffin / Sky Cinema / Shutterstock The richest man on Earth has a prolific dating history, and as someone who constantly throws himself into the spotlight, it’s almost as if Elon Musk was all of our boyfriends this whole time.
His exes range from novelists, actors, and singers, and have given him a total of 10 children which he can use to fix the threat of population collapse or whatever.
Aside from what we know about the Tesla CEO, his exes have all provided an inside scoop over the years on what it’s like to date the billionaire and how their relationships went down.
Here are 11 things Elon Musk’s exes have revealed about what it’s like to date him.
1. Elon Musk doesn’t take no for an answer.
Justine Musk, Elon’s first wife, is a Canadian author who released an article through Marie Claire that reads like sort of a memoir, and she explains in full detail what it was like being his wife.
She reveals that when she first started dating Elon, she immediately discovered that he didn’t take no for an answer.
“He invited me out for ice cream. I said yes, but then blew him off with a note on my dorm-room door,” she wrote, adding that he later found her in the student center.
“Elon was smiling awkwardly, two chocolate-chip ice cream cones dripping down his hands. He's not a man who takes no for an answer.”
This sounds like a cute start to a whirlwind romance, but Justine’s novelesque writing clearly implies that this characteristic from Elon became a recurring theme of their relationship.
2. Justine was treated like she was inferior to Elon.
As Elon was gradually growing his fortune (relative to his wealth now), his relationship with Justine was also getting more serious.
He got her to sign a postnuptial agreement and began showing signs of narcissistic behavior and abuse of power.
"I am the alpha in this relationship," he told her, as they danced at their wedding.
“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,” she wrote.
A dynamic began between them, where she would repeatedly tell him that she wasn’t his employee, and he would retort that if she was, he would have fired her.
3. “Elon was obsessed with his work.”
This happens to be a recurring theme among all of his relationships and is largely the reason all of his relationships are doomed to fail — but Justine laid it out very clearly.
“Elon was obsessed with his work: When he was home, his mind was elsewhere. I longed for deep and heartfelt conversations, for intimacy and empathy,” she wrote.
“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.”
His work is more important than hers, his everything is more important than whatever she wanted.
Elon waves an air of grandeur and looks at a bigger picture — one that sits in a frame designed by him alone.
4. Elon Musk can be emotionally unavailable.
Justine revealed that shortly after the birth of their first child, Nevada, an unfortunate and unforeseen incident caused the death of their newborn baby.
“Nevada went down for a nap, placed on his back as always, and stopped breathing,” she wrote. “He was 10 weeks old, the age when male infants are most susceptible to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).”
After their baby’s death, Elon became completely unavailable emotionally — while Justine grieved, Elon made it clear not to talk about it.
“Elon made it clear that he did not want to talk about Nevada's death,” she wrote. “I didn't understand this, just as he didn't understand why I grieved openly, which he regarded as ‘emotionally manipulative.’"
5. Elon Musk wants a trophy wife.
Elon has repeatedly stated in the past that when it comes to his 10 children, their mothers do a lot of the heavy lifting that comes with parenting and raising them — he focuses on his work and takes them on trips to foreign countries.
Justine believed that Elon had turned her into a trophy wife, but she herself claimed that she “sucked at it.”
“I wasn't detail-oriented enough to maintain a perfect house or be a perfect hostess,” she wrote. “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.”
Not only that but how Elon prioritizes his work over everything else and puts himself and his ideals first, his relationships take on the appearance of some sort of hobby for him.
6. Justine said Elon pressure her to be blonde.
It worked out in American actress, Amber Heard’s favor, but for the rest of his exes, he will push them to go blonde.
“No matter how many highlights I got, Elon pushed me to be blonder. ‘Go platinum,’ he kept saying, and I kept refusing,” Justine wrote.
Toward the end of her piece, she also explained how Talulah Riley, Elon’s second wife, had dyed her hair blonde — likely because of Elon’s will.
Elon’s most recent ex, Canadian musician Grimes, even dyed her hair blonde for a time, causing many people to speculate that it was because of him.
If you aren’t blonde, he will push you to be.
7. Talulah Riley said Elon Musk is a great friend.
Riley was married to the Tesla founder between 2010 and 2012 and again between 2013 and 2016.
In an interview with The Independent, Riley talked about her relationship with Elon and why they remarried a second time.
Despite having been married twice and being separated now, Riley holds nothing but a “very deep love and connection” with Elon.
“He’s a great friend. He looks out for me,” Riley said. “We are in a happy place now, where we’re good to each other, which is really nice. I have the utmost love for him.”
It would seem that Elon had a much easier time with his split from Riley than with Justine.
8. Amber Heard's friends allegedly found Elon Musk “controlling.”
While Elon’s relationship with Heard was short-lived, it went on for long enough that sources close to the Aquaman actress got a good enough look at what he was like during their time together.
According to documents exclusively obtained by The Daily Mail, a family friend named Jennifer Howell revealed in court that Elon was controlling towards Heard and that Heard’s late mother, Paige, told her all about it.
“Paige shared with me while I was visiting [Amber’s sister] Whitney that Elon Musk had gifted a Tesla or multiple Teslas (not sure if it was one or more), but Amber found out that they were ‘bugged,'” Howell said.
When contacted for a comment, Elon and his team denied the allegations, describing the declaration as “pure fantasy land,” saying the actress “only ever said glowing things” about him.
9. Grimes says Elon can be very immature.
Grimes, who has two children with the billionaire, seems like the perfect polar opposite of Elon as she often kept him in check during their relationship.
Elon’s Twitter presence is far too existent, and sometimes things can get out of hand when the billionaire decided to speak his mind.
When he was accused of being a men’s rights activist by fans on her TikTok, she defended his actions but also admitted that he was immature.
"He's not. Def he's been very immature at points on Twitter but for ex the president of SpaceX is a woman, as is his right hand at Neuralink etc," she wrote in the comments.
10. Grimes says dating Elon comes with a lot of scrutiny.
Being in the limelight as often as Elon puts himself in it means that all of the people around him will also become bait for news corporations and headlines — Grimes felt it all too much.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, she admits that she was not prepared for what would come next after their appearance at the Met Gala.
"I was simply unprepared," she said of how much scrutiny came with dating Elon. "I just thought I could keep going along in my funny little way, and then you casually respond to someone in a tweet and it's on Fox News, and you're like, ugh, you know? That was a very disturbing moment."
She became a news trend overnight and all eyes were on her at all times when they were together.
11. Elon Musk does not live like a billionaire, according to Grimes.
Grimes revealed in an interview with Vanity Fair that while Elon might be the richest man in the world, he certainly doesn’t live like it.
“Bro does not live like a billionaire. Bro lives at times below the poverty line,” she said. “To the point where I was like, can we not live in a very insecure $40,000 house?”
Elon has openly rejected his material wealth at certain points — moving into tiny homes or selling all of his belongings — and Grimes was sick of it.
“The neighbors, like, film us, and there’s no security, and I’m eating peanut butter for eight days in a row,” she claimed, describing how she and Elon had lived at certain times.
Since his breakup with Grimes, Elon’s life hasn’t changed very much — aside from the secret twins he had with Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis.
He remains single up to this point, and will likely stay that way until he finds someone that he can fit into his very busy schedule.
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Since graduating from Rutgers University, he spends most of his free time gaming or playing Quadball. Keep up with his rants about current events on his Twitter.