Sergey Birn, a co-founder of Google, has instructed his advisers to divest his portfolio of all investments in companies or projects related to Elon Musk. The divestment was ordered after it was revealed that Elon Musk had an affair with Brin’s wife while they were separated, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The affair reportedly occurred in December at Art Basel in Miami, while Brin and his wife, Nicole Shanahan, were living apart during a temporary separation, citing unidentified sources familiar with the matter. It has reportedly ended the long friendship between Musk, 51, and Brin, and caused Brin to officially file for divorce from Shanahan in January.
Brin, 48, is the eighth richest man in the world, with a worth of $94 billion. Brin and Shanahan have hired a private “temporary judge” to handle their divorce, a decision which allows their divorce to move quicker through the clogged California court system, and which will allow them greater privacy in the process.
Brin is seeking joint custody of their two-year old daughter, is not seeking spousal support, and is asking that Shanahan not be awarded spousal support either. Reportedly, although there is a prenuptial agreement, and Brin is looking to have assets parted according to it, Shanahan in looking to walk away with $1 billion according to the Journal.
Musk, the co-founder of Tesla, and Brin had been good friends, with Musk often talking fondly of the times he crashed at Brin’s house during their early days. Brin had even rescued Tesla once with a $500,000 loan when Tesla was in dire straits during the 2008 financial crisis, and he had invested in other Musk projects.
Musk reportedly met Brin at an event subsequent to the affair, and begged him for forgiveness, which reportedly Brin granted. However regardless, Brin no longer wishes to be invested in any Musk projects, and is continuing with the divestment.
It is unclear the size and scope of Brin’s investments in Musk-related projects, and it is unknown whether there have ben any sales thus far, the Journal reported.
The affair is just the latest story to break recently about the personal life of Musk, the richest man in the world with a worth of $242 billion. Earlier in the year he was reported to have fathered twins with a senior executive at his artificial intelligence startup Neuralink. Before that, he had another child via surrogate with an ex-girlfriend, singer Grimes, who herself at the time was dating former army intelligence analyst and whistleblower Chelsea Manning.
Then it was reported Musk’s company SpaceX had paid an employee $250,000 over a sexual harassment claim. At the time Musk called the accusations “utterly untrue” and said they were only being brought up to interfere with his acquisition of Twitter, which he has since sought to back out of.
Before his marriage to Shanahan, Brin was married to 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki from 2007 to 2015. Together they had a son, now 13, and a daughter, 11.
