OAN Staff Cory Hawkins and Brooke Mallory
1:12 PM – Monday, January 12, 2026
Elon Musk announced this week that he intends to seek full custody of his youngest son, a move that comes after Ashley St. Clair, one of the mothers of his fourteen children, appeared to publicly apologize to the transgender community while voicing support for them.
St. Clair recently distanced herself from her past rhetoric, which once framed transgenderism as the celebration of a mental health crisis, in favor of a new-found commitment to “privately learning and advocating” for individuals with gender dysphoria.
While St. Clair’s past remarks frequently centered on the protection of women’s spaces and combating the “medicalization” of children, she now suggests those concerns have been overshadowed by “immense guilt” plaguing her. The former conservative author and commentator detailed her ongoing efforts to educate herself and make amends through private advocacy for the transgender community.
Adding fuel to the fire for Musk, St. Clair also cited the potential “pain” her past remarks may have caused her son’s half-“sister,” a reference to Musk’s gender dysphoric child, Vivian Jenna Wilson, a biological male who now identifies as a transgender female.
The Tesla CEO soon took to X to address the reaction to St. Clair’s remarks, bluntly asserting his intent to seek custody of their one-year-old son, Romulus, in response to her shifting views.
“I will be filing for full custody today, given her statements implying she might transition a one-year-old boy,” Musk said.
In June 2022, shortly after turning 18, Musk’s child filed a petition to change his name from Xavier Alexander Musk to Vivian Jenna Wilson, adopting his mother Justine Wilson’s maiden name. In court documents, the young adult stated that he no longer wished to “be related to my biological father [Elon] in any way, shape or form.”
Then, in 2024, Musk publicly criticized his child’s transition, saying he felt he had been misled into signing the consent documents.
“I was tricked into doing this. It wasn’t explained to me that puberty blockers are actually sterilization drugs,” Musk stated in a 2024 Daily Wire interview. “I lost my son, essentially. They call it ‘deadnaming’ for a reason. The reason they call it ‘deadnaming’ is because your son is dead, so my son, Xavier, is dead, killed by the woke mind virus.”
In 2021, St. Clair co-authored the children’s book “Elephants Are Not Birds” with Brave Books, a publisher focused on conservative and Christian values. The story follows Kevin the Elephant, who loves to sing and is encouraged by a character named Culture, a vulture, to believe he is a bird. Ultimately, Kevin learns to embrace his true, factual identity as an elephant, reinforcing the message that biological realities are fixed — with the book explicitly teaching young readers that “boys are not girls” and elephants are not birds.
Meanwhile, following St. Clair’s public fallout with Musk and a string of X posts endorsing matters pertaining to “woke” ideology, online users began to reassess how truly conservative the author is, with many suggesting she may have adopted a “faux” right-wing persona largely for profit or to meet wealthy Republican men like Musk.
St. Clair first publicly revealed Musk as the father of her son in February last year, announcing on X that she had given birth five months earlier, in September 2024, and purposely kept the details private initially to “safeguard” the child’s privacy and safety. The revelation marked the start of a highly public and contentious co-parenting dispute between the St. Clair and the Tesla CEO.
She later filed petitions in New York Supreme Court seeking sole custody and a formal paternity declaration, alleging Musk had acknowledged parentage in private communications but refused earlier requests for a paternity test.
Tensions escalated further in late March last year.
St. Clair was filmed outside her Manhattan apartment handing over the keys to her $100,000 Tesla Model S to a buyer, stating she was “forced” to sell the vehicle to offset what she described as a 60% reduction in child support payments from Musk. She accused him of unilaterally cutting the support after she pursued legal action, calling it an attempt at control and punishment that ultimately harmed the child.
Musk quickly responded on X, denying any refusal of paternity verification and claiming he had already provided $2.5 million upfront plus $500,000 annually in support.
The incident highlighted the ongoing friction in their relationship, which has played out largely through court filings, social media exchanges, and media coverage ever since the initial public disclosure. A subsequent paternity test later confirmed Musk’s biological fatherhood with near-certainty, but the financial and custody battles have continued to draw widespread attention.
Musk has 14 publicly known children, fathered with four different women. He has often shared his worries about declining birth rates and speaks about his large family as part of that concern. Musk has also suggested that he may have more children in the future, and while there have been rumors about others through surrogacy or private agreements, only these 14 have been publicly reported and acknowledged.
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