Elon Musk denies keeping the birth of his 12th child with Neuralink employee a 'secret'

Elon Musk welcomed a new baby earlier this year and people are only just finding out.

Despite keeping the news out of the public eye for months, the Tesla boss says that the arrival was no secret.

The infant is his third with Shivon Zilis, an executive for Musk’s Neuralink.

The Tesla boss quietly welcomed his 12th child earlier this year (ODD ANDERSEN/AFP via Getty Images)

The name and sex of the baby has not yet been revealed but, talking to Page Six, the billionaire said: “As for ‘secretly fathered,’ that is also false. All our friends and family know. Failure to issue a press release, which would be bizarre, does not mean ‘secret.'”

The new arrival is Musk’s 12th child and he has been very outspoken in the past about promoting a boost in birth rates due to his concerns about population decline.

Speaking to Bloomberg, he said: “Many countries are already well below replacement rate, and the trend is that almost all will be. This is simply a fact, not a ‘debunked theory.'

“2.1 kids is replacement rate, and obviously the world as a whole will soon drop below that point.”

Elon Musk shares three children with singer Grimes (ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)

It seems he is practicing what he preaches after the mogul previously welcomed twins with Zilis in 2021.

The twins were born just one month before he had a daughter with singer Grimes via surrogate.

The girl is named Exa Dark Sideræl but is known as Y and the pair also have a four-year-old son, X Æ A-12, known as X.

In September 2023, it was revealed that the former couple had welcomed a third child - a son named Techno Mechanicus, known as Tau for short.

Taking to X, formerly Twitter, Grimes wrote: “I wish I could show u how cute little Techno is but my priority rn is keeping my babies out of the public eye. Plz respect that at this time.”

The billionaire has been vocal about his concerns over population decline (Matteo Nardone/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

With his first wife, Justine Musk, the entrepreneur also has twins, Griffin and Vivian, born in 2004, and triplets, Kai, Saxon, and Damian, born in 2006.

Their eldest, Nevada, died in 2002 at just 10 weeks old from sudden infant death syndrome.

In 2022, Musk tweeted: “A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces, by far.”

It seems Musk has taken matters into his own hands to increase the population but his growing brood hasn’t been without its controversies.

He is currently in a messy custody battle with Grimes who is suing him over parental rights to their three children.