Tesla boss Elon Musk today denied a media report that alleged he had an affair with the wife of Google co-founder and billionaire Sergey Brin.
"This is total bs. Sergey and I are friends and were at a party together last night! I've only seen Nicole twice in three years, both times with many other people around. Nothing romantic," Mr Musk tweeted, in reply to a report by the Wall Street Journal, or WSJ, that said he allegedly had an affair with Mr Brin's wife, Nicole Shanahan.
Mr Musk and Mr Brin were close friends until the affair, the report said.
Mr Brin had filed for divorce in January citing "irreconcilable differences," and claimed he and Ms Shanahan had been separated since December 15, 2021.
The WSJ report said: "The liaison with Mr. Musk took place in early December 2021, at the Art Basel event in Miami...Art Basel is a multiday, annual festival that draws wealthy attendees from around the world. At a party...Mr Musk dropped to one knee in front of Mr Brin and apologised profusely for the transgression, begging for forgiveness, according to people with knowledge of the incident."
Mr Brin was reportedly among the first people to be given a Tesla car when production got off the ground, and the Google co-founder gave Musk $500,000 in 2008 to keep Tesla afloat during the global recession sparked by the US subprime mortgage crisis.
The alleged affair came several months after Mr Musk had broken up with his girlfriend, singer Grimes, with whom he shares two children. Not only this, a few weeks ago, several reports surfaced online that said Mr Musk had secretly fathered twins in November 2021 with Shivon Zilis, an employee at Mr Musk's company Neuralink.
Mr Musk is also locked in a legal battle with Twitter after he dropped a bid to buy the microblogging company.
