Google co-founder Sergey Brin filed to divorce his wife after learning she had an affair with fellow tech billionaire Elon Musk, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Musk, the richest man in the world, and Brin, the eighth-richest person, were close friends until the affair, the newspaper reported. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO regularly crashed at Brin’s house, and Brin helped support Musk and Tesla during the 2008 financial crisis.
In recent months, the two had a falling out, with Brin telling his financial advisers to sell investments in Musk’s companies, according to the Journal.
Brin filed for divorce from his wife, Nicole Shanahan, in January, shortly after learning of the affair, according to the newspaper. While the couple were having issues, they were still living together when Musk and Shanahan reportedly had the affair at the Art Basel festival in Miami in December 2021.
They officially separated on Dec. 15.
Musk reportedly apologized to Brin at a party earlier this year, even dropping to a knee to express his sincerity, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Musk, 51, separated from the Canadian singer Grimes, whose real name is Claire Elise Boucher, in September after a roughly three-year relationship. The entrepreneur had twins with a top executive at another one of his companies, Neuralink, weeks before he broke up with Grimes.
The billionaire has nine living children with three women. His daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson filed in Los Angeles court last month to change her name, in part because she wanted to no longer be associated with her father.
Musk is currently locked in a legal battle with Twitter after he dropped a bid to purchase the social media company.
Brin founded Google in 1998 with Larry Page. He was president of Google parent company Alphabet until he stepped down in 2019. He married Shanahan in 2018.
