Who is Justine Musk?

Justine Musk née Wilson is Tesla and SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk’s first wife. The two married in 2000, after knowing each other for nearly a decade. They had five children together, lost a child, and split up in 2008. She now goes by Wilson and is a modern fantasy writer. 

Wilson, writing for Marie Claire, had noted that Musk made fun of her, and considered himself the “alpha” in the relationship. 

Born on September 2, 1972, in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, Wilson spent most of her early life there. She then attended Queen’s College in Kingston, where she obtained a degree in English Literature, and also met the South African-born entrepreneur, who’d one day go on to become the richest man in the world. 

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Writing about Musk in the Marie Claire essay, Wilson said “A fellow student a year ahead of me, he was a clean-cut, upper-class boy with a South African accent who appeared in front of me one afternoon as I was leaping up the steps to my dorm. He said we’d met at a party I knew I hadn’t been to. (Years later, he would confess that he had noticed me from across the common room and decided he wanted to meet me.)”

However, Wilson had blown Musk off initially, when he’d asked her out for ice cream, but he didn’t take “no for an answer”, as his ex-wife recalled. The two eventually went their separate ways, with Wilson moving to Japan to teach English as a Second Language (ESL) before moving back to Canada to work on her novel. She took up a bartending job during this time. 

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Wilson recalled reaching out to her sister and saying she’d reconsider a relationship if Musk contacted her. The innovator called a week later, and Wilson moved to California to be with Musk. Their first child, Nevada, who died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), was born in 2002. This condition is when an infant, less than a year old, inexplicably dies. 

They had twins Xavier and Griffin after that, and then triplets, Kai, Saxon and Damian. 

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Their marriage didn’t last, but Wilson and Musk share custody of their children. She’s also been supportive of Musk’s next wife Talulah Riley. Xavier, who’s petitioned to have his name changed to Vivian Jenna Wilson, has taken Justine’s maiden name. 

Musk’s ex-wife is now an author with titles like ‘BloodAngel’ and ‘Uninvited’. She also writes short stories. “Smalltown Canadian girl”, written by Wilson, was published in ‘The House that Made Me: Writers Reflect on the Places and People that Defined Them’, in 2016.