Elon Musk, who secretly fathered twins last year, congratulates Nick Cannon on growing his family

Elon Musk has offered his congratulations to Nick Cannon on his growing family in a now-deleted tweet, after it was revealed that the Tesla CEO fathered twins with an executive at his neurotech firm, Neuralink.

Nick Cannon, a soon-to-be father of eight, made headlines this past year when he welcomed three babies in 2021 alone. The Wild “N Out host is notorious for fathering several children with various women, although now it seems that Musk has taken the crown with a total of nine children.

On 6 July, reports broke that Elon Musk, 51, had quietly welcomed a set of twins with Shivon Zilis, 36, in November 2021. The children were born mere weeks before the billionaire welcomed his second child with on-again off-again partner Grimes.

The Tesla founder shares five children with ex-wife Justine Wilson and two children with Grimes.

Musk seemingly responded to the news on Thursday when he posted a series of tweets on the importance of adding more people to the population.

“Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis. A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far,” he said. “I hope you have big families and congrats to those who already do!”

Cannon, 41, tweeted in response: “Right there with you my Brother!

In a now-deleted tweet, Musk wrote back: “Congrats on your family! We must expand scope & scale of consciousness for civilisation to flourish & understand nature of Universe.”

“Consciousness resides most strongly in humans, therefore we need more people!” he added.

According to court documents obtained by Business Insider, Musk and Zilis filed a petition in April to change the twins’ name to “have their father’s last name” and contain part of their mother’s last name. A Texas court approved the request in May. The documents also show the pair listed the same home address in Austin, Texas, where Tesla is based.

Zilis, a Yale-educated artificial intelligence specialist, is currently the director of operations and special projects at Neuralink, a Musk-led firm which designs computer implants to allow people’s brains to control electronic devices.

The twins arrival came just one month before Canadian singer Grimes (real name Claire Boucher) welcomed her second child with Musk – a daughter named Exa Dark Sideræl – in December 2021 via surrogate.

Meanwhile, Cannon shares 11-year-old twins – Moroccan and Monroe – with ex-wife Mariah Carey, and two children – Golden, five, and Powerful, one – with Brittany Bell.

In 2021, Cannon welcomed twins Zion and Zillion with Abby De La Rosa and son, Zen – who passed away of a brain tumour in December 2021 – with Alyssa Scott. In January 2022, he confirmed that he’ll be having his eighth child with model Bre Tiesi.