Elon Musk Reportedly Has A Strange History With Former RFK Jr. Running Mate Nicole Shanahan

To say that Elon Musk or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have some sketchy moments in their past is something of an understatement. Both men have openly confessed to things they've done that, in any other climate, would have excluded them from any serious political consideration. However, one of the strangest claims about an incident from the past links the Tesla CEO not to Kennedy, but rather Kennedy's former running mate, Nicole Shanahan.

Shanahan was married to Sergey Brin, the cofounder of Google, from 2018 until 2023, when the pair finalized their divorce. According to a report in The New York Times from May 2024, as Shanahan's marriage to Brin began to get shaky, she started to go out and party by herself with other members of the super-wealthy class. At these parties, she allegedly began experimenting with fairly hardcore party drugs, including ketamine and cocaine.

At one such party in Miami, Shanahan allegedly ran into Musk — who has revealed that he routinely takes ketamine medicinally — who had been very close friends with Brin for years, and knew Shanahan through that friendship. However, the pair allegedly did ketamine together at the party, then went off together to a private room for a few hours. Shanahan then allegedly told many people, including her husband, that she and Musk had sex at the party. Brin filed for divorce in January 2022, citing "irreconcilable differences" as the grounds for the petition.

Elon Musk — who is the father of 12 children from three women — took to X (formerly Twitter) to shoot down the claims of an affair, which were originally made by The Wall Street Journal in an exposé in July 2022. Musk wrote, "This is total bs. Sergey and I are friends and were at a party together last night! I've only seen Nicole twice in three years, both times with many other people around. Nothing romantic." He helpfully and maturely followed that up with, "Haven't even had sex in ages (sigh)." Despite denying the affair, Musk subsequently offered Shanahan the use of his sperm for purposes of conceiving a child in late 2022 — an offer which Shanahan roundly rejected — according to a Vanity Fair report in October 2024.

Shanahan, meanwhile, has been outspoken about how reports of the affair have hurt her emotionally. "My career has been based on academic and intellectual credibility, and I was being shamed internationally for being a cheater," Shanahan, a lawyer and former vice presidential candidate, told People in July 2023. "To be known because of a sexual act is one of the most humiliating things ... it was utterly debilitating."