Elon Musk reveals partner Shivon Zilis is half-Indian, says their son named after Nobel laureate S Chandrasekhar

Elon Musk has shared new details about his family, confirming that his partner Shivon Zilis has Indian ancestry. Speaking on Zerodha founder Nikhil Kamath’s podcast “WTF is?”, the Tesla and SpaceX chief said that the middle name of one of their sons is “Sekhar”, chosen in honour of renowned Indian-American physicist and Nobel Prize winner Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.

“I’m not sure if you know this, but my partner Shivon is half Indian,” Musk said during the conversation. “One of my sons with her, his middle name is Sekhar after Chandrasekhar.”

Musk went on to describe some of Zilis’s early life, revealing that she was adopted as a baby. “She grew up in Canada. She was given up for adoption when she was a baby. I think her father was like an exchange student at the university or something like that,” he said. “I’m not sure the exact details, but you know it was kind of thing where I don’t know, she was given up for adoption. But she grew up in Canada.”

Zilis, who joined Neuralink in 2017, serves as Director of Operations and Special Projects at Musk’s brain-interface company. A Yale graduate with degrees in Economics and Philosophy, she has four children with Musk: twins Strider and Azure, daughter Arcadia and son Seldon Lycurgus.

During the podcast, Musk also reflected on the contribution of Indian talent to the United States. “America has been an immense beneficiary of talent from India, but that seems to be changing now,” he said, pointing to tightening US visa rules and ongoing policy uncertainty that are increasingly discouraging Indian professionals from pursuing opportunities in the country.