Elon Musk released a photo Monday that he suggested disproves a report published over the weekend that claimed that he had an affair with the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk “engaged in a brief affair last fall with the wife of Sergey Brin” in early December 2021 at the Art Basel event in Miami. Brin, a co-founder of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is the world’s eighth richest man, worth nearly $95 billion. The company also owns Android and YouTube.
The Wall Street Journal said the alleged affair caused Brin to file for divorce from wife Nicole Shanahan earlier this year and has ended the friendship between the two men.
Musk released a photo of himself with Brin that he said had just been taken a few hours before, showing the two men partying together.
“Nicole and Sergey’s divorce has absolutely nothing to do with me,” Musk told the New York Post. “I am sure both Nicole and Sergey would confirm that. I spoke with both Sergey and Nicole about this and they say the story isn’t coming from them, so [it] must be a case of broken telephone, two or three layers removed.”
“We were not romantically involved in any way,” he continued.
Yeah, that was Sergey and me yesterday afternoon!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2022
“A picture is worth 1000 tweets,” Musk wrote on Twitter. “The real problem here is that [Wall Street Journal Investigations Editor] @michaelsiconolf has zero journalistic integrity.”
The Wall Street Journal’s report noted that Musk and Brin were so close at one point that Musk had regularly slept at Brin’s home, and Brin had loaned Musk money when Tesla was struggling during its early days.
The report claimed that Musk “dropped to one knee in front of Brin and apologized profusely for the transgression” during a party earlier this year and was “begging for forgiveness.” The report said that Brin acknowledged the apology, but he is not speaking with Musk and has ordered his team to sell his investments in Musk’s companies.
“This is total bs. Sergey and I are friends and were at a party together last night!” Musk responded on Twitter Sunday evening. “I’ve only seen Nicole twice in three years, both times with many other people around. Nothing romantic.”
“WSJ has run so many bs hit pieces on me and Tesla I’ve lost count! It’s embarrassing for them, frankly,” Musk continued. “They once wrote an article saying FBI was about to arrest me, so I called FBI to ask what’s up and they said WSJ article was total bs. Just more shortseller fud.”