Ashley St. Clair says Elon Musk cut her monthly child support to $20,000 after she revealed their son, a drop she ties to refusing a secrecy deal and going public.
In the documentary “Musk,” the former conservative influencer claims the Tesla CEO first reduced her monthly support to $40,000 after she rejected a nondisclosure agreement, then cut it again to $20,000 once she publicly identified their child. Page Six reported the account as an alleged $80,000 monthly reduction tied to that reveal.
St. Clair, 28, says their son is Romulus St. Clair, now 2, and describes him as Musk’s 13th child. She made the public reveal in February 2025. A rep for Musk did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.
The dispute sits inside a larger fight over money, secrecy, and paternity. Her legal team has said the reduced support left her facing eviction while a custody battle continued.
St. Clair has said Musk offered $15 million plus $100,000 a month in child support if she signed an NDA. She refused. She has said she could not “in good conscience” sign and did not want her newborn to “feel like he’s a secret.”
That choice is the hinge of her story. In her telling, the payments fell after the refusal, then fell again after the February 2025 reveal. The documentary frames the second cut as the sharper blow.
Family court fights draw intense public attention when children and famous names collide, much like other high-drama legal cases readers follow when a mother’s courtroom battle spills into open view.
Musk has previously described large payments of his own. He has said he paid St. Clair $2.5 million and continued substantial yearly support even while questioning paternity.
The New York Post reported that Musk wrote on X he did not know whether the child was his, but was “not against finding out.” The same coverage described a paternity petition in Manhattan Supreme Court and a photo of Musk holding the infant, whom St. Clair says he saw three times and named.
"I don’t know if the child is mine or not, but am not against finding out."
St. Clair has pushed back hard on that uncertainty. She has said she asked for a paternity test before the birth and that Musk refused.
"Elon, we asked you to confirm paternity through a test before our child (who you named) was even born. You refused."
Coverage of the money fight has also included her claim that she moved to sell a Tesla to offset what she called a steep cut in support. Breitbart reported her statement that she needed the sale “to make up for the 60 percent cut that Elon made to our son’s child support.”
Those earlier figures, $2.5 million plus hundreds of thousands a year, sit beside her newer documentary claim of monthly support landing at $20,000. The gap is the core of the public argument.
St. Clair says the relationship began in 2023 when Musk started interacting with her on X. She has described him responding to her posts and urging a larger family.
"He was responding to my posts frequently. One day, he responded to one of my Mother’s Day posts [and said] that I should have more children."
She has also recalled him telling her she should have many more children.
"We should have a kid. You should have so many more kids. You should have 10 kids."
Supporting accounts place the conception story around a January 2024 trip to St. Barts. Absolute dates for each alleged payment change are not laid out in the available reporting, and full court orders and NDA text have not been produced in that coverage.
Personal crises involving parents and missing family members can dominate a news cycle for days, as when a missing-mother appeal seizes national attention and keeps the focus on the people left waiting.
At the Venice Film Festival premiere of “Musk,” St. Clair claimed that before the birth Musk texted about wanting a “legion of children before the civil war.” She has also said his manner changed after Romulus arrived.
"It was almost as if he didn’t show a certain side of himself until after I had our baby."
She previously said on TikTok that “things started getting weird” when she became pregnant. She has described Musk as “kind” until the birth, then different afterward, while also saying he called himself a “good dad.”
The same reporting notes Musk recently welcomed another child, Seldon Lycurgus, with Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis, described as his 14th. Zilis has said he ended their relationship “with no warning.”
St. Clair has further claimed other women contacted her, including a story about a woman in Japan seeking sperm donation. Those accounts remain her claims, without independent identities attached in the coverage.
Violent family tragedies elsewhere remind readers how fast private breakdowns become public records, including cases where a home shooting leaves children at the center of a community’s shock.
What remains clear is the narrow dispute the documentary puts forward: an alleged NDA offer worth millions, a refused signature, a public reveal in February 2025, and monthly support St. Clair says fell to $40,000 and then $20,000. Musk’s side, in earlier statements, has stressed large prior payments and a willingness to test paternity while stopping short of a detailed answer to the newest cut claims.
Court filings, full payment records, and a complete on-the-record reply to the $20,000 figure would settle more than any documentary sound bite. Until those appear, the public is left with dueling numbers and a child in the middle.
Wealth can fund silence, but it cannot cancel fatherhood, and when the NDA fails, the argument belongs in daylight and in court, not in another secret deal.
