Dana Mattioli, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (main link is a gift link; also, here’s a News+ link):

Musk has had at least 14 children with four women, including the pop musician Grimes and Shivon Zilis, an executive at his brain computer company Neuralink. Multiple sources close to the tech entrepreneur said they believe the true number of Musk’s children is much higher than publicly known.

Imagine having 14 acknowledged children but your friends suspect the actual number is “much higher”. What a profound weirdo this guy is.

Cryptocurrency influencer Tiffany Fong was covering disgraced crypto tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried’s downfall when Musk started liking and replying to her posts. Musk’s interactions ramped up as Fong posted more political content in support of Trump, and Musk followed her last summer.

That sort of attention from Musk on X, where he has 219 million followers, sent droves of followers to Fong, which was a financial boon. More engagement meant more earnings for her as part of a revenue-sharing program for creators on X.

During the height of her interactions with the billionaire owner, Fong earned $21,000 on the platform in a two-week period in November, according to a screenshot she posted. That was about when Musk sent her a direct message asking if she was interested in having his child, according to people familiar with the matter. The two had never met in person.

Fong didn’t move forward with Musk because she pictured having children in a more traditional nuclear family, but confided to a few friends about the approach — including St. Clair, whom she knew as another conservative social-media figure — and how she worried that turning him down could hurt her earnings.

Once Musk learned that Fong disclosed the request to others, he chided her for not using discretion, according to the people, and unfollowed her. That contributed to a fall in her engagement, and her earnings declined.

There’s arguably an insinuation here that something crooked happened to Fong’s Twitter/X earnings after she declined Musk’s offer, but there doesn’t have to be for it to be sick. It’s just gross that Musk’s M.O. is to hit up suddenly popular women and ask if they’d like to have his children, and to lavish money-earning public attention on them while courting them.