WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
  • Ashley St. Clair says she rejected a silence agreement worth roughly $40 million involving Elon Musk.
  • She says monthly child support later fell from a proposed $100,000 to $20,000.
  • Musk denies that St. Clair was offered the agreement and says he previously provided $2.5 million.
  • The reported offer and current payment rate produce a gap of roughly $35 million over 252 months.

DISCLAIMER: GoldInvestors.news is not a registered investment, legal or tax advisor or broker/dealer. All investment/financial opinions expressed by GoldInvestors.news are from the personal research and experience of the owner of the site and are intended as educational material. Although best efforts are made to ensure that all information is accurate and up to date, occasionally unintended errors and misprints may occur.

Ashley St. Clair says she rejected an agreement worth roughly $40 million that would have required her to remain silent about Elon Musk. She says monthly child support for their son, Romulus, later fell from the proposed $100,000 to $20,000.

St. Clair, 28, describes the dispute in Alex Gibney’s documentary Musk, which runs nearly four hours. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Sept. 8 and expanded to theaters nationwide on Oct. 16.

The author and former conservative influencer said the proposed agreement included a $15 million lump sum and monthly payments of $100,000 for 20 years. The Wall Street Journal reported that those monthly payments would continue until Romulus turned 21.

St. Clair said the arrangement would have prevented her from disparaging or discussing Musk, his employees, or his affiliates indefinitely. According to the Journal, she also would have been required to repay the $15 million if she violated the agreement.

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The reported deal included no trust fund or life insurance for Romulus if Musk died before the child turned 21. St. Clair said she could not accept those conditions in good conscience.

“I would rather go to a studio apartment with both my children than sign this,” she told Don Lemon during a June interview.

St. Clair says Musk reduced the payments to $40,000 monthly after she refused to sign, then cut them to $20,000 after she publicly revealed their son in February 2025. The Journal reported the same payment amounts but linked the first reduction to her request for a court ordered paternity test.

In March 2025, her attorney, Karen Rosenthal, accused Musk of substantially and unilaterally reducing support. Days later, St. Clair sold her Tesla Model S, saying she needed “to make up for the 60% cut that Elon made to our son's child support.”

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Musk denies making the proposed offer. “She was never offered that and has a history of making false claims,” he wrote on X on Sept. 9 while responding to a TMZ post about St. Clair’s comments in Venice.

The dispute had already surfaced publicly on March 31, 2025, when Musk posted that he did not know whether the child was his but was willing to find out. “Despite not knowing for sure, I have given Ashley $2.5M and am sending her $500k/year,” he wrote.

That annual figure equals about $41,700 a month, close to the $40,000 St. Clair says she received at that point. The Journal also reported that Musk sent her $2 million during her pregnancy, structured as a loan.

A court ordered paternity test put the probability that Musk is Romulus’ father at 99.9999%, according to the Journal. In January 2026, Musk said he would seek full custody, and the custody case remains ongoing.

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Musk did not participate in Gibney’s film and dismissed it on X as a hit piece. His attorney, Alex Spiro, sent Gibney’s production company a letter alleging defamation, although NPR reported that the letter concerned a different scene involving Musk’s texts with St. Clair.

Using the terms reported by the Journal, the offer totals about $40.2 million. That includes $15 million upfront and 252 monthly payments totaling $25.2 million, while $20,000 over the same period would total about $5 million.

The resulting gap is around $35 million, although the comparison assumes payments never change and no judge intervenes. It also excludes the $2.5 million Musk says he previously paid and the months when St. Clair says she received $40,000.

Using the 20 year term described in the film produces a similar result. The proposed agreement would total $39 million, compared with $4.8 million at the current monthly rate, leaving a gap of roughly $34 million.

Time further changes the calculation because future installments are worth less than money received immediately. Assuming a 4% annual return, the proposed monthly payments would be worth about $17 million today, putting the full offer near $32 million.

St. Clair maintains that money was never the central issue. “I want to set the example for my kids that you should never take being materially comfortable over speaking the truth,” she told reporters in Venice, while the Journal reported her legal fees approached $250,000 by April 2025.

DISCLAIMER: GoldInvestors.news is not a registered investment, legal or tax advisor or broker/dealer. All investment/financial opinions expressed by GoldInvestors.news are from the personal research and experience of the owner of the site and are intended as educational material. Although best efforts are made to ensure that all information is accurate and up to date, occasionally unintended errors and misprints may occur.