Does Elon Musk have a Jewish child?
Ashley St. Clair, a right-wing influencer known for courting controversy, says he is the father of her 5-month-old son
Ashley St. Clair, a conservative social media provocateur, revealed she was Jewish shortly after the Oct. 7 attacks. Courtesy of Ashley St. Clair via X; Getty Images
By Louis Keene February 19, 2025
A Jewish right-wing influencer has come forward with the claim that Elon Musk fathered her son — then told her to keep it secret.
Ashley St. Clair, who posts content favorable to President Donald Trump to more than 1 million followers on X, shared Friday on the social platform that the child, born five months ago, is Musk’s. She did not reveal the child’s name.
Musk has neither confirmed nor denied his paternity, and did not respond to an inquiry via X (formerly known as Twitter) from the Forward. Musk did reply “Whoa” on Saturday to a post claiming that St. Clair had plotted to “ensnare” him.
St. Clair’s spokesperson also did not respond to a request for comment.
Musk has acknowledged fatherhood of a dozen children with three different women. If St. Clair is the fourth, she would be the first who is Jewish; according to the Jewish principle of matrilineal descent, that would make any of her children Jewish as well. (Some denominations, like Reform Judaism, believe Jewishness can be transmitted by either Jewish parent.)
She revealed her Jewish identity following the Oct. 7 attacks, in posts where she seemed to criticize comments made by some Israeli officials.
“I’m Jewish. I support Israel’s right to defend itself,” St. Clair wrote Oct. 10 on X. “However, I reject emphatically the bloodthirsty warmongers I have seen the past few days.” She later added, “My mother is Jewish!”
St. Clair is a former contributor to the right-wing satirical publication the Babylon Bee and was fired by the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA after she was photographed at a dinner for white nationalists and antisemites, including Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.
She has also written an anti-transgender book called Elephants Are Not Birds.
In an article published Saturday in the New York Post, St. Clair said she first connected with Musk over direct messages on X in May 2023. She said she flew to San Francisco to interview him for the Bee, and that their relationship became sexual. She added that Musk paid her rent, and said that when she got pregnant, he demanded she confine the news to a tiny group.
“I was told to keep it secret,” St. Clair told the Post. “I was being asked to keep it a secret forever.”
The Post said that St. Clair showed a reporter text messages from a conversation between her and Musk’s manager, Jared Birchall, in which she complied with a request to leave Musk’s name off of her son’s birth certificate.
Musk has a mixed record regarding Jews and Jewish issues.
He has had several friendly meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, recently visited Auschwitz, and says “two thirds” of his friends are Jewish. But he also regularly consorts online with white supremacists who traffic in antisemitism, made what seemed like a Nazi salute at a rally following President Donald Trump’s inauguration and, at a recent conference of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, said Germans need to get over “past guilt.”
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