Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Elon Musk’s 14 publicly known children, claimed Tuesday that she turned down $40 million offered by the Tesla CEO to sign a non-disclosure agreement about their relationship. Musk denied the claim Wednesday, but his willingness to engage with the publicity surrounding the new movie that St. Clair was promoting seems likely to help it succeed at the box office when it’s released in late October.
The documentary, simply titled Musk, premiered at the Venice Film Festival in Italy on Tuesday, where St. Clair and the film’s director Alex Gibney held a press conference. Gibney’s movie is reportedly brutal in its depiction of Musk, examining how he has hoodwinked the world into believing he’s a genius. St. Clair, a former right-wing influencer and anti-trans activist, also makes some shocking allegations, according to early reviews.
Musk responded Wednesday to a tweet about St. Clair and her claims about turning down an NDA for $40 million, writing, “She was never offered that and has a history of making false claims.”
St. Clair and Musk met in the spring of 2023. After their child was born, she was offered $15 million for a home and living expenses if she kept the relationship secret, according to the Wall Street Journal. St. Clair would also receive $100,000 a month until the child turned 21, according to the paper. Those monthly payments would add up to about $25.2 million, bringing the grand total to $40.2 million, assuming the Journal’s reporting is accurate.
The Journal reported in April 2025 that St. Clair didn’t sign the NDA because it prevented her from speaking about Musk, but it didn’t stop Musk from talking about her at all. If she broke the NDA, she also would’ve had to pay back the $15 million portion and declined to sign the deal.
It’s unclear if Musk is denying that she was specifically offered $40 million—in which case he might be trying to get away with a technicality, since it sounds like it was $40.2 million—or if he’s denying that she was offered an NDA at all. Representatives of Musk didn’t immediately respond to emailed questions Wednesday.
Musk has six children with his first wife Justine Wilson (who is also his third wife), though one died of SIDS as a child. He has three children with the musician Grimes, and four with Neuralink employee Shivon Zilis, a woman he’s referred to several times now as his partner. The Journal says that other women have been offered money for their silence, so it seems likely that Musk has other children that are unknown to the public.
Musk wrote in March 2025 that he didn’t know if the child was even his but had given St. Clair $2.5 million and $500,000 per year. St. Clair claimed at the time that Musk wasn’t paying enough in child support.
The billionaire has become publicly obsessed with supposed population decline and believes that humanity will go extinct if more babies aren’t born, especially to white people. Musk is particularly obsessed with declines in the white population, something that shouldn’t be surprising given the SpaceX CEO’s two Nazi-style salutes in 2025. Musk has also promoted far-right parties in Europe and helped President Donald Trump decimate the federal government with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
Gibney’s documentary is almost four hours long, something the director says didn’t happen on purpose and was only necessary because he had to return to the subject after Musk started manipulating the U.S. government in 2025 with DOGE. Musk helped oversee the destruction of USAID and the purge of roughly 300,000 federal employees. Researchers estimate about 700,000 people have died from the dismantling of USAID and millions more will die in the coming years.
Musk has said that Gibney’s documentary isn’t accurate, writing on X, “Gibney just assembled a hit list of people who either have an axe to grind or don’t even know me (but still have an axe to grind). He has ZERO integrity. Horrible human.” In another tweet, Musk wrote, “Dogshit is worth more respect than Gibney.”
Gibney is a celebrated documentary filmmaker, known for documentaries like Taxi to the Dark Side (2007), Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015), and The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (2019), the last of which is about Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes. Gibney is not the kind of guy who makes movies recklessly. But that might be why Musk seems so scared about the public seeing this one.
Musk spent Wednesday quote-tweeting criticism of the new documentary from people who hadn’t seen it. In one tweet, where Musk simply wrote “accurate,” an image was shared that shows several puppets controlling smaller puppets below them. They’re labeled with “Democratic Party” as the largest, working down to “Team Soros” (a reference to Democratic donor George Soros), then Alex Gibney, Hollywood, and the “legacy media.”
Accurate https://t.co/cGOyzjbcMw
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 9, 2026
Gizmodo hasn’t yet seen the Musk documentary, but it sounds like St. Clair’s relationship with Musk plays a pivotal role. St. Clair possesses texts between her and Musk that relate to some of his most controversial moves, including his alleged drug use. Bobby Allyn, a reporter for NPR, says he obtained some of the texts that were used in the movie, including one in which Musk apparently wrote: “WSJ has published three articles with no direct sources basically saying that I’m high all the time.” In a follow-up, Musk reportedly wrote, “I mean, I’m high a little…sure,” along with a shrugging emoji.
Musk’s bizarre public behavior in 2025, especially at CPAC where he wielded a chainsaw while appearing unhinged, has led to plenty of speculation about what drugs he may use. But he has frequently denied using recreational drugs and said that the New York Times was “lying their ass off” about his alleged use of cocaine, ecstasy, and ketamine. Musk posted what he said were drug test results in June 2025 that indicated he had not tested positive for several drugs.
It’s hard to imagine other tech oligarchs constantly whining about a documentary in which they’re the subject, if only because it helps promote the movie as something controversial that people should see. Jeff Bezos, for example, never commented publicly on the Frontline documentary Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos. But Musk isn’t the smartest guy around, nor does he understand public relations. He clearly believes that he can bully and whine his way through any criticism, just like Donald Trump.
Sometimes the best thing to do from a public relations perspective is simply shut up and focus on your work. Musk isn’t going to do that, which is likely to help this rather long documentary make some decent money in theaters. Assuming Musk doesn’t first deploy his other favorite tactic: Filing lawsuits.
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