Elon Musk has said it’s his duty to “make new humans”, according to a new report in the Wall Street Journal. The report also details how far the billionaire tech mogul is willing to go to fulfill his vision of solving what he sees as a “population collapse crisis”- and how he’s using his own social platform, X, to do it.
According to people familiar with the matter and documents reviewed by WSJ, Musk has privately approached multiple women through X, initiating flirty or intellectual exchanges that sometimes escalated into direct requests: would they be willing to have his child?
One woman he connected with this way was conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair, who began privately messaging with Musk after he started liking and commenting on her posts. The connection deepened. She visited the X offices, entered a relationship with him, and eventually gave birth to his child, Romulus, in fall 2023.
Musk’s team, led by longtime confidant and fixer Jared Birchall, soon proposed an NDA deal: $15 million upfront, and $100,000 per month until the child turned 21 – in exchange for silence.
St. Clair declined. Since then, she says, the deal has only gotten worse with every perceived betrayal. “I don’t want my son to feel like he’s a secret,” she told Birchall in a recorded phone call. Shortly after The Wall Street Journal contacted Musk for comment, St. Clair says Musk’s team sent her just $20,000 – a far cry from the original offer.
The report suggests Musk may have fathered ‘significantly more children than the 14 publicly known’, though the exact number remains unclear. What is clear: a highly secretive and controlled operation is being orchestrated behind the scenes, with Birchall at the center.
Birchall, who manages Musk’s family office, is also the CEO of Neuralink and a partner in xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence venture. But perhaps his most delicate job is managing Musk’s sprawling and complex private life. According to the WSJ, Birchall not only drafts legal agreements and disburses payments but also acts as a sounding board for the mothers of Musk’s children – sometimes spending hours on the phone smoothing over relationships or discouraging legal action.
In one notable exchange, Birchall told St. Clair that going the legal route with Musk “always, always leads to a worse outcome for that woman than what it would have been otherwise.”
This wasn’t an isolated incident. In another case, Musk approached ‘Tiffany Fong’, a crypto influencer, through X. After a series of public likes and private messages, Musk proposed she have his child – despite never having met her in person. Fong declined, citing her own values around family, but when Musk discovered she had shared the message with friends, he cut off contact. She was later removed from the platform’s revenue-sharing program, and her income plummeted.
The secrecy is critical to Musk’s pronatalist mission, which he often couches in civilization-saving terms. “A collapsing birthrate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far,” Musk told a Saudi investment forum in 2023 according to the report. “If people don’t have more kids, we’re doomed.”
He envisions building a “legion” of children—his term—with intelligent and genetically desirable women. According to sources, Musk has even discussed surrogacy and compound-style living for future mothers. Those who agree to participate, like Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis, who has had four children with Musk, often receive high levels of discretion and support.
But those who push back – like St. Clair or pop star Grimes, who has also been involved in a custody battle over their three children – often find themselves up against Musk’s formidable legal and financial machine.
“There’s a whole ecosystem around keeping this quiet,” said one person familiar with the arrangements. “It’s not just about privacy – it’s about control.”
