Elon Musk had a brief fling with Sergey Brin’s wife last fall, which led to the Google co-founder filing for divorce earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. The two entrepreneurs used to be close friends, but the affair ended their friendship, the Journal reported.
Brin and his wife, Nicole Shanahan, were separated at the time of the affair in December but were still living together, a person close to her told the Journal. Brin, who married Shanahan in 2018, filed for divorce in January, citing “irreconcilable differences” several weeks after learning of the affair, the Journal reported.
According to the Journal, Musk apologized to Brin at a party earlier this year and asked for forgiveness for the affair. Brin acknowledged the apology but does not speak to Musk regularly, people with knowledge of the event told the Journal.
Musk and Brin were longtime friends, with Musk reportedly often staying at Brin’s home in Silicon Valley. Brin, who is worth $95 billion, also reportedly made a $500,000 investment in Tesla during the 2008 financial crisis when the automaker grappled with production problems.
News of the alleged affair comes at a turbulent time for the founder and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, who is also the richest person on earth. Earlier this month, Twitter sued Musk to complete its proposed $44 billion purchase of the social media platform after telling Twitter he was ending the agreement to buy the company.
Around the same time, news broke that Musk and one of his top executives had secretly had twins in November. Musk has also fought allegations that SpaceX paid a flight attendant $250,000 to settle allegations that the billionaire exposed himself to her during a flight.
Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither Brin nor Shanahan, who run a reproductive justice foundation, could be reached immediately for comment.