Google co-founder Sergey Brin “tried to avoid” a selfie photo that Elon Musk snapped of the two of them at a party amid a denied report that the Tesla mogul slept with his friend’s wife, according to a new book.
In July of last year, Musk, 52, disputed a Wall Street Journal story which alleged that he had an affair with Brin’s then-estranged wife Nicole Shanahan in December 2021, prompting the Google mogul to file for divorce a month later.
According to Walter Isaacson’s newly released biography titled “Elon Musk,” the Tesla mogul went out of his way to refute The Journal story.
“Right after the story broke, they were at a party together, and Musk maneuvered himself into a position where he could take a selfie with Brin, which Brin tried to avoid,” Isaacson wrote in the book.
Isaacson did not elaborate on how or why Brin sought to dodge the picture frame.
Musk provided the photo to The New York Post “to rebut the allegation that they’d had a falling out,” according to Isaacson.
“Took this pic only two hours ago,” Musk told The Post on July 24 of last year.
The photo, which was reportedly taken at the seaside home of billionaire venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson on the occasion of his wife’s 40th birthday, shows him laughing while rubbing shoulders with fellow billionaire Brin.
Brin has not publicly commented on the report of the alleged affair or the selfie.
Musk is said to have got down on bent knee and begged for forgiveness from Brin, 50, who had helped keep Tesla afloat with a $500,000 lifeline in 2008, when it appeared the electric car maker could go bankrupt, The Journal reported.
The alleged affair, which reportedly took place on the sidelines of the annual Art Basel festival in Miami Beach, angered Brin to the point where he divested his holdings in Musk’s electric car company, Tesla, according to The Journal.
At the time the story of the alleged affair broke, Brin’s stake in Tesla was said to be worth around $100 million.
Brin, who started Google alongside fellow software engineer Larry Page, is the ninth richest person in the world with a net worth of $116 billion as of Thursday, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Musk is the world’s richest person.
His fortune is estimated by Bloomberg Billionaires Index at $245 billion.
Shanahan, an attorney whose divorce from Brin was finalized last year, has denied the affair and insisted she and Musk were friends.
She said they had discussed the potential of his brain chip company Neuralink for “helping my daughter with her autism treatment” — but their relationship never turned romantic.
“Did Elon and I have sex, like it was a moment of passion, and then it was over? No,” Shanahan said.
“Did we have a romantic relationship? No. We didn’t have an affair.”
“It was a conversation that was very meaningful about life and how people show up for one another,” added Shanahan.
“To be painted with such a massive scarlet letter for it just seems so unfair.”
Shanahan is currently in a long-term relationship with Lightning Labs vice president Jacob Strumwasser.
Musk is a twice-divorced father of 11 children — the first of which died of sudden infant death syndrome in 2002.
Isaacson revealed in his book that Musk fathered an 11th child — the third with Canadian pop singer Grimes.
Musk and a subordinate, Shivon Zilis, who works for the mogul at brain chip implant company Neuralink, have two twin boys who were conceived via artificial insemination.
He is father to five other children — twins Griffin and Vivian and triplets Damian, Saxon, and Kai — from his first marriage to Justine Musk.
Musk did not have children with his second wife — British actress Talulah Riley.
Isaacson’s book also offers details about Musk’s volatile relationship with another former flame, actress Amber Heard, who ran afoul of the mogul’s family.
Musk asked Heard to dress as one of his favorite video game characters while they were together.
The mogul later confirmed the anecdote from Isaacson’s book by sharing a steamy photo of her in the get-up Wednesday.
“She did dress up as Mercy. It was awesome,” he posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, which he owns.
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