(Daily Mail) Elon Musk got down on one knee to beg Sergey Brin for his forgiveness at a party earlier this year after the Google founder learned of Musk’s affair with his wife and filed for divorce, according to sources close to them.
Musk is said to have had a brief fling with Brin’s lawyer wife Nicole Shanahan at Art Basel, a multi-day art event in Miami, in December last year. It prompted Brin, the eighth richest man in the world with a net worth of $95billion, to file for divorce in January.
He cited ‘irreconcilable differences’ as the reason, but The Wall Street Journal on Sunday reported that it was Musk’s dalliance with Nicole that signaled the end of their marriage.
Art Basel took place in Miami last year between December 2nd and December 4th last year. According to the Journal’s sources, Nicole and Sergey were already having marital problems because of the stress of COVID-19. They were also arguing over the care of their four-year-old daughter.
It’s unclear if Sergey attended Art Basel but Musk, newly single after splitting from Grimes, was there and at some stage became romantic with Nicole. A month later, Sergey filed for divorce. In the official papers, he gave December 15th as the date of separation.
Sources cited by the Journal say Nicole is now seeking $1billion in their divorce – a fraction of her husband’s $95billion wealth but allegedly more than he says she is entitled to under the conditions of their prenup.
She is arguing that he forced her to sign the prenup under duress while pregnant, according to the newspaper.
At a party after Sergey filed for divorce, Musk is said to have run into him and begged for his forgiveness. Publicly, he accepted his apology but the two – who were once close friends – are no longer on regular speaking terms, the Journal’s sources say.
Nicole was profiled on the cover of San Francisco magazine in June last year.
She was heralded as a ‘change maker’, and told the interviewer how she overcame a childhood with a ‘bipolar schizophrenic father.
‘My dad was diagnosed with bipolar schizophrenia when I was 9, and my Chinese-born mom had only been in the US for two years when I was born. I had two unemployed parents for the majority of my childhood, so not only was there no money, there was almost no parental guidance, and as you can imagine with a mentally ill father, there was lots of chaos and fear.’
She told of growing up on food stamps and bussed tables when she was 12, and how the internet changed her life.
‘Without the internet I would probably still be in Oakland doing the same thing I was doing age 12’.
Musk was one of the first dot.com billionaires. He created the company that went on to become PayPal.
Nicole, in her interview, told of her desire to leave behind a legacy of ‘ideas’ and ‘helping the planet’.
‘I want my legacy to be one of ideas. I want it to be about evolving the human experience on this planet in an abundant way. I want it to be one of strength and love and compassion. I want it to be one of working hard, learning from one’s mistakes and of personal growth.’
It’s unclear how long the romance with Musk lasted but it occurred in the same month that he welcomed a baby girl via a surrogate with his ex-girlfriend Grimes, and was a month after he secretly welcomed twins with a former executive from one of his companies. He started dating current girlfriend Natasha Bassett in February.
The affair, the latest romantic scandal to befall Musk, comes amid his ongoing legal battle with Twitter which is harming the company’s bottom line but also the future of social media.
All of the drama led to Twitter missing expectations with revenue of $1.18billion.
On Friday, the company blamed it on how Musk had disrupted business with his dramatic hostile bid take-over, then sudden about-turn.
‘Twitter is on a rowboat in the middle of a storm. The Musk saga rocked the boat even harder. Twitter is now in the unenviable position of convincing advertisers that its ad business is solid,’ analyst Jasmine Enberg said of the saga.
When Brin filed for divorce in January, the real reason for the divorce was not clear.
He cited ‘irreconcilable differences’ in divorce papers but asked for the docket to be sealed to protect his young daughter.
The affair brought an abrupt end to Elon and Sergey’s years-long friendship; in 2008, Sergey gave $500,000 in funding to Tesla at the height of the financial crisis.
Elon has also spoken fondly of crashing at Sergey’s homes. Brin and Shanahan, 37, share a daughter, who was born in 2018.
The Google founder has asked to share custody of her as part of the divorce arrangements, which they are fighting to keep private out of fear that their daughter will be put at risk of ‘harassment’ or ‘kidnapping’.
Musk has not commented on the allegations.
Brin is said to own multiple interests in Musk’s many businesses, all of which he has ordered his aides to sell.
When the divorce proceedings were launched in January, Nicole told Puck: ‘I hope for Sergey and I to move forward with dignity, honesty and harmony for the sake of our child.
‘And we are both working towards that.’
She is a Stanford-educated lawyer who works at the firm Bio-Echa, an investment firm that pours money into projects like bolstering ‘reproductive longevity’.
