Feb 14, 2025 20:45 IST
First revealed on: Feb 14, 2025 at 20:45 IST
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Billionaire and First Buddy of the US of America. Tech savant and wannabe coloniser of Mars. Edgelord. Elon Musk wears many extra hats than the MAGA cap he wore at a latest press convention with US President Donald Trump within the Oval Workplace, in addition to his assembly with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He’s additionally, as seen in latest pictures, together with ones from the 2 official occasions talked about above, a Family Man. Together with his son X Æ A-Xii — “X” for brief — perched on his shoulders, Musk cuts fairly the paternal determine. “Father of the yr” as some adoring social media customers gushed; and if not that, then actually a hotter character than his many public pronouncements — on unions and staff’ rights, vaccines, the “woke virus”, queer rights and race — convey. Not the person who lacks “the emotional receptors that produce on a regular basis kindness and heat and a need to be appreciated”, as per his biographer Walter Isaacson’s description. A person, in actual fact, who revels within the firm of his little one, indulging him and proudly displaying him off to the world and its leaders.
Going just by latest photo-ops, it does appear to be Musk is intent on persevering with the “household affairs” vibe that was so outstanding throughout Trump 1.0. If Ivanka, Don Jr, Barron and others from the President’s giant brood dominated the information cycle throughout these 4 years, the subsequent 4 could very nicely see the highlight on X and his 10 siblings — not essentially of their volition (and even their moms’, maybe, going by the anguished tweet from X’s mom, Claire Boucher, higher often called Grimes: “He shouldn’t be in public like this”). We’re prone to see extra of them (or, at the least, hear extra about them) as a result of it softens the billionaire CEO’s sharp angles, making him appear extra approachable, much less polarising and, nearly actually, extra human. What may be extra relatable than a doting dad carrying his little tyke piggy-back? Or beaming as a world chief describes one in every of them as having “excessive IQ” (Trump about X) or bestows presents on them (PM Modi at his assembly, the place three of Musk’s youngsters have been in attendance, together with the Tesla CEO’s accomplice, Shivon Zilis, and the youngsters’s nanny)?
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However Musk, very like his expansive CV, just isn’t really easy to encapsulate. Little doubt, his youngsters are a supply of nice pleasure to him — even when one in every of them is at the moment estranged from him — however within the public eye, in addition they perform as the very best promotion for his pronatalist place. The billionaire has not been shy about his views on the start charge, inhabitants and youngsters: The primary is in severe decline, significantly within the developed world; the second can’t be allowed to shrink if the economic system is to develop; and solely having extra and extra of the third can stop the disaster of a demographic decline. “Humanity’s biggest risk” is what Musk has referred to as it — “a a lot greater danger to civilisation than international warming.”
That that is a view shared by a number of within the conservative base that propelled Trump and his buddy to energy can’t be ignored. And right here, it’s not simply due to fears about how the economic system would fare have been there no folks to prop it up. Musk has been cautious to root his pronatalism in financial arguments — though his perception that sensible individuals are duty-bound to propagate their type has drawn the side-eye, verging because it does on eugenics — however among the many MAGA-ists, the previous bogeys about divorce, contraception/abortion, “single cat women”, queer marriage, and the decline of American tradition maintain sway.
Musk has made no bones about wanting a number of extra youngsters of his personal; certainly, the primary two of his three youngsters together with his present accomplice Zilis, an govt at his firm Neuralink, have been born through IVF, after Musk inspired her, as a “sensible individual”, to have youngsters and provided to father them. On the time, he was married to X’s mom Boucher, with whom he was having his second of three youngsters through a surrogate. He additionally, on the time, already shared 5 youngsters together with his first spouse, Justine Wilson. There’s no lacking the woods for this very sophisticated household tree: So far as youngsters are involved, Musk believes the extra, the merrier. So what if solely the world’s richest man can afford them?
pooja.pillai@expressindia.com
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