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Elon Musk has denied having a romantic relationship with the ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
The Tesla founder responded on Twitter after the the wall street journal reported Sunday that Musk, 51, had been involved in a “brief affair” with Nicole Shanahan last fall and cited people familiar with the matter.
The outlet reported that Musk and Brin were previously longtime friends, with Brin even giving Musk $500,000 for Tesla during the 2008 financial crisis. regularly crashed” at Brin’s home in Silicon Valley, the WSJ also reported.
However, the publication’s sources reportedly said there had been growing tension between the two tycoons and their teams following the alleged ‘affair’ in December 2021, with Brin asking his financial advisers to sell his personal investments in Musk’s companies.
Representatives for Musk, Brin and Shanahan did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s requests for comment and did not comment on the WSJ.
Musk responded to a Twitter user who shared the WSJ article with a caption stating that Musk “allegedly hit the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, which led to the couple’s divorce” and that “the two are apparently no longer friends”.
“That sucks. Sergey and I are friends and were at a party together last night!” Musk fired back in a Twitter post on Sunday night. “I’ve only seen Nicole twice in three years, both times with lots of other people around. Nothing romantic.”
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Musk added elsewhere in the thread, “I haven’t even had sex in ages (sigh).”
Brin filed for dissolution of Shanahan’s marriage in early January, according to court documents obtained by PEOPLE.
Together, the couple share a young daughter. Brin was previously married to 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki from 2007 to 2015, and they share son Benji, 13, and daughter Chloe, 11.
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Brin cited “irreconcilable differences” in his split from Shanahan, Business Insider first reported, noting that the couple have joint assets but how they should be split is “to be determined.”
Additionally, Brin requested joint custody of their daughter. He also stated that he was not asking for spousal support from Shanahan and asked that she not receive it either.
Brin and Shanahan enlisted a private “temporary judge” to preside over the case, according to Business Insider.
Brin filed a case in Santa Clara Superior Court as California deals with a pending system. The private interim judge will allow the couple to expedite their divorce despite the backlogged courts. It also ensures a higher level of confidentiality.
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“The petitioner is a co-founder of Google and one of the wealthiest and most famous tech entrepreneurs in the world. Due to the high-profile nature of their relationship, there is likely to be significant public interest for their dissolution and child custody issues,” Brin’s attorney wrote in a filing, adding, “What is of great concern is that such publicity puts their minor child at risk of harm. , harassment and even kidnapping, if the details of their daily whereabouts are exposed to the public.”
The Russian-American internet entrepreneur co-founded Google with Larry Page in 1998, and although they both left their senior positions at search engine holding company Alphabet in 2019, Brin still retains a majority stake, according Forbes.