The next article discusses psychological well being points.

Justine Musk is the creator of a number of novels, most notably her darkish fantasy sequence “BloodAngel.” Nevertheless, she is finest identified for being Elon Musk’s first ex-wife, one thing she did not plan for. Her affiliation with the senior adviser to President Donald Trump turned her life the other way up. “How do you divorce a billionaire? First it’s important to marry one. I did not imply to do that. I used to be a younger aspiring novelist from the decrease center class who assumed she would find yourself with some delicate arty kind or maybe a pleasant professor,” she wrote in a 2010 essay for The Occasions.

Justine and Elon went by means of a messy divorce amid his rising fortune and the monetary inequality it created, however their marriage hadn’t been a lot simpler. The Elon Justine met in school grew to become more and more controlling as his wealth exploded. With that within the background, the tragic lack of their child son and the psychological well being disaster she confronted within the aftermath all however ensured the demise of the wedding. After eight years and 6 kids collectively, Justine and Elon went their separate methods.

Justine has since lived out of the highlight. All through her marriage to Elon, she usually blogged about her private life. However she stopped round 2013. In certainly one of her final posts, she prompt she was nonetheless harm. “When somebody treats you badly — over years — it leaves you uncooked and wounded inside.” Justine might have gotten good cash from her divorce from Elon, however her life with him was removed from simple.

The primary of Justine and Elon Musk’s kids did not reside to see his first birthday. In 2002, the Musks’ first son, Nevada Alexander, suffered a tragic dying from Sudden Toddler Dying Syndrome at simply 2 months previous. “Nevada went down for a nap, positioned on his again as all the time, and stopped respiratory. He was 10 weeks previous, the age when male infants are most inclined to SIDS,” Justine shared in a 2010 essay for Marie Claire.

He did not die immediately, but it surely was too late to avoid wasting him. “By the point the paramedics resuscitated him, he had been disadvantaged of oxygen for therefore lengthy that he was brain-dead,” she penned. After three days on life assist, Justine and Elon let him go. “I held him in my arms when he died,” she wrote. This final assertion grew to become some extent of competition in 2022 as a result of Elon claimed he was the one who held Nevada throughout his final moments.

When Elon defended the suspension of Alex Jones from X for spreading a conspiracy idea in regards to the 2012 Sandy Hook taking pictures, he cited his child’s dying. “My firstborn youngster died in my arms. I felt his final heartbeat,” he tweeted. “I’ve no mercy for anybody who would use the deaths of youngsters for acquire, politics or fame.” However Justine wished to set the report straight. “Not that it issues to anybody besides me … however I used to be the one who was holding him,” she tweeted.

Justine Musk struggled to deal with the dying of her firstborn. As a result of Elon Musk most well-liked to not speak about Nevada and what had occurred to him, she had no choice however to grieve in silence. “Throughout the subsequent 5 years, I gave delivery to twins, then triplets, and I bought three novels to Penguin and Simon & Schuster,” she wrote within the Marie Claire piece. It seemed just like the Musks had moved on. However Justine hadn’t and her solitary grieving took a toll on her psychological well being. 

She believes her signs would have continued to worsen if somebody hadn’t intervened. “Nevada’s dying despatched me on a years-long inward spiral of despair and distraction that may be persevering with as we speak if certainly one of our nannies hadn’t observed me struggling,” she continued. The nanny prompt Justine see a therapist to assist her take care of the lack of her son and even linked her with one. “Doubtful, I gave it a shot. In these weekly classes, I started to get perspective on what had develop into my life,” she wrote.

Years later, Elon continued to defend his method to struggling in silence. “Wallowing in disappointment does no good for anybody round you,” he advised Ashlee Vance in her 2015 biography, “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Implausible Future” (through The New Yorker). It additionally did not stop him from affected by despair himself. However as a substitute of searching for a therapist, Elon has opted to deal with his psychological well being situation with ketamine. 

In case you or somebody you understand wants assist with psychological well being, please contact the Disaster Textual content Line by texting HOME to 741741, name the Nationwide Alliance on Psychological Sickness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or go to the Nationwide Institute of Psychological Well being web site.

Elon Musk was one man to Justine Musk throughout their courtship — and a very totally different one throughout their marriage. Once they met, he was supportive of her goals and aspirations. He was impressed when she advised him she wished to develop into a printed creator. “It was the primary time {that a} boy discovered my sense of ambition — as a substitute of my lengthy hair or slim waist — engaging,” she wrote for Marie Claire, citing how earlier boyfriends had criticized her competitiveness. 

He slowly modified his tune. Along with his rising fortune, Elon started to query his spouse’s choices. “Elon began to say that I ‘learn an excessive amount of,’ shrugging off my ebook deadlines. This felt like a dismissal, and a stark reversal from the times when he was so supportive,” she shared. Her husband additionally began controlling her look, pushing her to be thinner and blonder. All of it caught her off guard.

However in hindsight, Justine realized the indicators had all the time been there. “As we danced at our marriage ceremony reception, Elon advised me, ‘I’m the alpha on this relationship.’ I shrugged it off,” she wrote. “Simply as I might later shrug off signing the postnuptial settlement.” The latter level grew to become an enormous challenge after they filed for divorce in 2008 and have been attempting to settle. “A cynical individual — which I’m not — would possibly recommend that my husband went into the wedding already planning for the divorce,” she argued in her essay for The Occasions.

Divorce is never easy, however Justine and Elon Musk’s was aggravated by a number of components. Once they wed in 2000, Elon wasn’t a billionaire and even related to Tesla or SpaceX. However he started to make his fortune early of their relationship, promoting Zip2 to Compaq for $307 million in 1999. “Elon Musk wasn’t a billionaire after I met him. He was a college pupil one 12 months older than me who had emigrated from South Africa with $300 in his pocket,” she famous in The Occasions piece.

In 2002, he snagged a $1.5 billion deal when he bought PayPal to eBay — and his fortune solely went up from there. Given her husband’s wealth, Justine’s function within the divorce was dissected early on. “When the topic of my divorce got here up with male pals, I observed flashes of hostility in the direction of me. One stated accusingly: ‘So that you suppose you deserve half?’ One other: ‘How a lot do you suppose you’ve got really earned?'” Justine penned.

However not everybody was in opposition to Justine. Actually, some accused Elon of crying poverty to get out of his obligations to the mom of 5 of his kids. He took challenge with that. “What caught me unexpectedly, and compelled me to hunt emergency loans from pals, have been the large authorized charges I needed to pay my ex-wife’s divorce legal professionals,” he wrote in a 2010 Enterprise Insider retort. Justine ultimately settled for $6 million and 10% of his SpaceX inventory.

Elon Musk filed for divorce from Justine Musk within the spring of 2008. Elon grew to become engaged to Talulah Riley (seen above) a month later. “Six weeks [after filing for divorce], he texted me to say he was engaged to a stunning British actress in her early 20s who had moved to Los Angeles to be with him,” she wrote of the “Satisfaction and Prejudice” actor within the Marie Claire essay. It stung, but it surely helped make clear a number of issues in her thoughts. “My life with this man had devolved to a cliché,” she wrote. “A minimum of she wasn’t blonde. I discovered that refreshing.”

As harm as she was, Justine did not blame Riley for her break up from Elon. Divorce is extra sophisticated than that. “[She is] about as personally chargeable for the dying of my marriage as she is for the dynamic that performed out inside it. In different phrases, not very,” she wrote in her weblog, highlighting that she had solely heard optimistic issues about Riley (through GQ). Regardless that she did not assault her and her relationship together with her ex, Elon took points with how their romance was portrayed.

In his Enterprise Insider essay, Elon clarified he met Riley solely after he filed for divorce in June 2008. “The very fact of the matter is that Talulah and I lived on reverse sides of the world and hadn’t even identified of one another’s existence earlier than the wedding with Justine ended,” he wrote.