Elon Musk Faces Legal Claims From Ashley St. Clair Over Paternity, Custody of Infant Child

Elon Musk, the South African wealth hoarder turned Nazi saluting toady (or controller, depending on who you ask) of President Donald Trump, just added “custody case plaintiff” to his to-do list. The vocal pronatalist, who has publicly acknowledged that he’s provided biological material for around a dozen children (that we know about) is now facing a pair of legal petitions from the mother of a five-month-old infant allegedly conceived during a January 2024 tryst.

As previously reported, in a Valentine’s Day post to Elon Musk-owned social media platform X (formerly Twitter), former Babylon Bee staffer/Fox News talking head Ashley St. Clair announced, “Five months ago, I welcomed a new baby into the world. Elon Musk is the father. I have not previously disclosed this to protect our child’s privacy and safety, but in recent days, it has become clear that tabloid media intends to do so, regardless of the harm it will cause. I intend to allow our child to grow in a normal and safe environment. For that reason, I ask that the media honor our child’s privacy, and refrain from invasive reporting.”

In the week since, Musk has found time to engage in increasingly troubling activities as the ostensible mastermind behind DOGE, his crypto-namesake, staffed by-open-racists effort to decimate federal support systems, as well as somewhat pathetically wield an actual tool. He has not, however, made any public statements acknowledging St. Clair’s announcement.

User Mag was first to report that on Friday, St. Clair followed her week-old statement with two petitions filed in Manhattan court. One asks the court to legally establish Musk as the father of a baby boy she gave birth to on September 17, 2024. A second demands full custody of the child, saying Musk has no involvement in its life, care, or upbringing.

According to the legal filings, the 26-year-old St. Clair embarked on a romantic relationship with the 53-year-old Musk in May 2023, and conceived the child, who—per People—goes by R.S.C., in early January 2024.

Musk was not present at R.S.C.’s birth, has met him only three times, and has spent less than three hours in total with the infant, St. Clair claims in her filings, which included a photo of the magnate holding the baby. He has not expressed any interest in seeing the child outside those meetings, St. Clair says in the court filings, nor has he “asked for photos of their child or even checked in on his son’s wellbeing,” User Mag reports.

According to St. Clair’s filing, Musk has “acknowledged parentage of the child in various written correspondences,” including a text in which he allegedly said, “If I make a mistake on security, [R.S.C.] will never know his father.” People has published a photo of that alleged exchange, credited to the court filings. St. Clair claims Musk also texted her to say, “I want to knock you up again” on November 24, 2024, and “Well, we do have a legion of kids to make” in February of this year.

In the filing, St. Clair asks that the courts “issue a summons, warrant or order requiring [Elon Musk] to show cause why the Court should not enter a declaration of paternity, an order of support and such other and further relief as may be appropriate under the circumstances.”

“This firm has been dealing with Respondent’s lawyer and representative, Alyssa Rower from Rower, LLC, in an attempt to resolve this matter privately,” St. Clair’s attorney, Karen B. Rosenthal, says in the filing. “However, his representatives have been nonresponsive in the past to resolve the outstanding issues and Respondent has indicated that he no longer wishes to resolve issues of custody and support amicably.”

This isn’t the first time Musk has been embroiled in a custody battle over his baker’s dozen of kids. Musician Grimes, who since 2020 has had three children with Musk, tweeted in September 2023 that he refused to allow her to see one of the children that they share, and petitioned “to establish parental relationship” in San Francisco court the following month. That dispute over custody reportedly ended last November, but on Thursday, the rift between the two again took center stage when, in public messages since deleted, Grimes tweeted, “Plz respond about our child’s medical crisis. I am sorry to do this publicly but it is no longer acceptable to ignore this situation. This requires immediate attention.”

“If you don’t want to talk to me can you please designate or hire someone who can so that we can move forward on solving this. This is urgent, Elon,” Grimes wrote in a subsequent, also-deleted tweet. “I’m not giving any details but he won’t respond to texts call or emails and has skipped every meeting and our child will suffer life long impairment if he doesn’t respond asap. So I need him to fucking respond and if I have to apply public pressure then I guess that’s where we’re at.”

Vanity Fair’s attempts to reach Musk for comment were unsuccessful as of publication time, nor has St. Clair responded to a request for comment. But speaking with People, St. Clair representative Brian Glickich had this to say: “Ashley St. Clair has filed paternity and custody petitions to protect the best interests of her child. She has made every effort to collaborate with Mr. Musk before taking this step. She has no further comment on the contents of the petitions, which speak for themselves.”