Elon Musk accused the publication of publishing “attack pieces” on him and Tesla in response to a Wall Street Journal article that claimed he had an affair with Nicole Shanahan, the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
On Monday, the CEO of the electric vehicle manufacturer tweeted that the allegation that he had an affair with Shanahan was “complete BS” and that he and Sergey Brin remained friends.
The WSJ reported over the weekend that Musk had a brief relationship with Shanahan in December of last year, citing unnamed sources. The article said that the long-standing friendship between the two software millionaires had come to an end because of the affair, which had led Brin to divorce Shanahan in January.
Billionaire Makes A Mess And It’s Evident With Sergey Brin’s Divorce
Musk tweeted that Shanahan, a lawyer and research fellow at CodeX, an organization devoted to utilizing technology to improve legal procedures and based at Stanford University in California, was not romantically involved with him and that he was at a party with Sergey Brin on Sunday. She also serves as the head of a foundation that promotes climate science, reproductive longevity for women, and criminal justice reform.
Musk later admitted that he had “lost track” of the amount of “hit articles” about him that the WSJ had published in a tweet to his more than 100 million followers. Musk said the news outlet had once reported that the FBI was preparing to arrest him, however, a 2018 WSJ article suggesting a criminal probe into Tesla does not refer to arrests being planned.
Musk responded to this tweet by saying that the WSJ should publish articles that “really matter to their audience and have a substantial factual basis.”
According to paperwork claims were filed in Santa Clara County superior court, Sergey Brin filed for divorce citing “irreconcilable disagreements,” the Journal reported. With a fortune estimated to be worth $94.6 billion (£78.6 billion), Sergey Brin, a board member at Google’s parent firm Alphabet, is the seventh richest person in the world. With a net worth of $242 billion, Musk is the richest person on earth.
The WSJ reported that after learning of the affair, Brin told his advisers to sell personal shares in Musk’s businesses. The newspaper said that it was unable to determine how much money was invested or whether any sales were made.
The WSJ claim was made as Musk prepared to go to court in October to defend his efforts to cancel his $44 billion purchase of Twitter. Twitter wants to compel Musk to carry out the agreed-upon transaction, which would value the business at $54.20 per share. This month, Musk backed out of the agreement, expressing worries about the prevalence of fake accounts on social media.