All About Shivon Zilis, Elon Musk's Partner, Who Is Half-Indian

Shivon Zilis holds dual citizenship in Canada and the United States.

Shivon Zilis, Elon Musk’s partner and an executive at his neurotechnology company Neuralink, is of half-Indian descent, the Tesla CEO has said.

“My partner Shivon, she’s half Indian,” he said during a podcast interview with Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath. “She was given up for adoption. She grew up in Canada,” he added.

Musk also shared that one of their sons has the middle name “Sekhar,” a tribute to Indian-American astrophysicist and Nobel laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. “One of my sons with her… his middle name is Sekar after Chandra Sekar,” Musk said.

He and Zilis have four children together: twins Strider and Azure, daughter Arcadia, and son Seldon Lycurgus.

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Who Is Shivon Zilis?

      Shivon Zilis was born in 1986 in Ontario, Canada. She holds dual citizenship in Canada and the United States. She attended Yale University and studied economics and philosophy. While at Yale, she played as a goalkeeper for the Yale Bulldogs women’s ice hockey team and also attempted to join the fencing team. She graduated from Yale in 2008.

 

      Zilis began her career at IBM. She moved on to Bloomberg Beta, the venture capital arm of Bloomberg LP, where she worked on internal startups and partnerships, specialised in early-stage investments in machine intelligence, and became a founding member.

 

      She also served as a fellow at the University of Toronto’s Creative Destruction Lab, advising startups focused on deep tech and AI. In 2015, Forbes named her to its “30 Under 30” list in the venture capital category for her innovative work in AI.

 

      In 2016, Shivon Zilis joined OpenAI, co-founded by Elon Musk, and went on to become the youngest member of its board of directors, a position she held until stepping down in March 2023. She met Musk during her time at OpenAI and later became involved with his other ventures, including Neuralink and Tesla. The couple now shares four children.

 

    In 2017, Zilis joined Neuralink, Musk’s neurotechnology company to develop brain-machine interfaces. She became director of operations and special projects, leading early development and operational strategy. In September 2023, she joined the board of Shield AI, a defence technology company focused on AI for aircraft.