Last month, Insider revealed an explosive report about a previous SpaceX flight attendant who accused SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk of equally exposing himself and propositioning her for intercourse in 2016 and to whom the firm paid out $250,000 to preserve tranquil. Musk immediately labeled the story “a politically determined strike piece,” even though SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell arrived to Musk’s protection in a subsequent, firm-extensive electronic mail claimed on by CNBC in which she wrote: “Personally, I feel the allegations to be bogus not due to the fact I perform for Elon, but because I have worked closely with him for 20 many years and never ever observed nor heard just about anything resembling these allegations.”
Now, a new, significantly a lot more damaging Insider report just emerged that puts Shotwell — and each other govt insider Musk’s numerous corporations — in a remarkably unpleasant posture.
In accordance to the story, posted late this afternoon: “Court paperwork obtained by Insider display that the tech mogul Elon Musk quietly experienced twins final November with a person of his top executives, Shivon Zilis. In April, Musk, 51, and Zilis, 36, filed a petition to transform the twins’ names in order to “have their father’s very last name and consist of their mother’s past title as section of their middle identify.” The order was permitted by a judge in Austin, Texas, this May perhaps . . . The twins have been born months just before Musk and Claire Boucher, the musician who performs as Grimes, experienced their next baby by way of surrogate in December.”
Zilis (or a person performing on her behalf) has presently taken off any mention of Neuralink from a web page about her track record, as well as dismantled her LinkedIn site.
Till not long ago, that very same web page stated that the work practical experience of Zilis — a Yale graduate who commenced her job at IBM, then invested on behalf of the Bloomberg-backed enterprise outfit Bloomberg Beta until eventually early 2016 — bundled Neuralink, Tesla and OpenAI.
All three, of program, have deep ties to Musk, who started Neuralink, cofounded OpenAI and assumed management of Tesla back again in 2008.
Specifically, states Insider, Zilis to start with met Musk in 2016 while a director at OpenAI, in which she is now the youngest member on its board of directors.
In 2017, she reportedly joined Tesla as a job director.
Right now, Zilis retains the title of director of operations and particular assignments for Neuralink, exactly where Musk is a co-CEO.
Insider provides that Zilis beforehand worked as a challenge director in the CEO’s place of work.
The outlet also suggests that Zilis has just lately been floated as 1 of the individuals Musk could faucet to run Twitter soon after his acquisition.
TechCrunch has not independently confirmed Insider’s account. Meanwhile, Musk, who is normally remarkably lively on Twitter and who did not respond to requests for comment from Insider (neither did Zilis), is remaining mum for now, even though he very last thirty day period tweeted that falling beginning premiums in the U.S. are a “demographic disaster,” adding, “I signify, I’m undertaking my section haha.”
The biggest dilemma the story raises, over and above how numerous children Musk strategies to father — it’s searching like he has at the very least nine young children with many partners — is whether or not any of these firms have fraternization policies that prohibit intimate interactions concerning a manager and a reporting staff member.
When most businesses the size of Tesla and SpaceX prohibit dating interactions involving personnel who are divided by two stages in the chain of command, Musk isn’t regarded as an individual who follows the normal guidelines.
Still, even if Neuralink, Tesla and OpenAI (where by Musk disassociated himself in 2019) do not have guidelines in location avoiding fraternization, it is obviously a large distraction, it’s terrible for morale and it could open up the corporations to enormous lawsuits from Zilis if at some issue down the street she decides he abused the ability he wielded as CEO.
It is also in all probability not looked on kindly by the U.S. federal government, which has presently been chilly towards Tesla beneath the Biden administration.
The documented progress also makes the board of directors at Musk’s providers seem astonishingly lax and puts defenders like Shotwell in the unenviable place of obtaining to reassure staff members that Musk shares their exact same ethics. No doubt she is staying asked to do that tonight.
We never envy her owning to create that upcoming enterprise-extensive email.
