‘ROMULUS’: Gift or Curse? Elon Musk’s Hidden Message in the Name of His 14th Child

In the sprawling constellation of Elon Musk’s chaotic, brilliant, and endlessly scrutinized life, a new star has emerged—and it bears a name forged in legend. “Romulus.” A name not chosen lightly.

A name that evokes empire, bloodlines and myth. A name that now belongs to what is publicly known as Musk’s fourteenth child, born in early 2024 to conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair. But far from being just another line on Musk’s ever-growing family tree, this name appears to carry something deeper. A message. A warning. Perhaps even a prophecy.

Romulus, in Roman mythology, was no ordinary child. Abandoned at birth, suckled by a she-wolf, and destined for greatness, he founded the eternal city of Rome—but not before killing his twin brother Remus in a battle over power and boundaries.

To christen a newborn with such a name is no mere coincidence. Especially when that child is the result of a clandestine affair between the richest man on Earth and a 26-year-old firebrand whose refusal to be silenced has ignited a media firestorm.

According to St. Clair, Musk helped name the baby. That admission alone is a revelation, considering Musk has yet to publicly confirm the child as his own. She insists the name was chosen after some back-and-forth, but ultimately, it was approved by the man himself—suggesting that Musk not only acknowledged the boy privately but perhaps envisioned something mythic in his future.

A founder. A leader. Or a warning shot.

This name comes at a time when Musk appears increasingly obsessed with legacy and collapse. His online musings have turned repeatedly to the theme of declining birth rates, and some now speculate that he is actively building a modern-day “dynasty” of children to combat what he calls a looming demographic disaster.

The Wall Street Journal, in a scathing exposé, framed Musk’s actions as part of a calculated effort to populate the world with his own bloodline, aided by NDAs, secret payments, and an eerily structured circle of women and offspring referred to as a “kid legion.” It’s an empire-in-the-making narrative that suddenly casts the name Romulus in a chillingly literal light.

Yet this empire, like Rome itself, is already plagued with internal rebellion. At the center of it is St. Clair, who claims she was offered $15 million and a staggering $100,000 monthly to keep Romulus hidden—to deny him a father in the public eye until his twenty-first birthday.

Her refusal marks a dramatic break from the script Musk allegedly uses with other mothers, including pop star Grimes and Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis, with whom he shares multiple children. She says she didn’t want her son to feel like a secret. That one sentence may have been enough to burn the invisible contract Musk seems to have relied on with other women. From that moment forward, war began.

Romulus’ birth was preceded by a strange, borderline dystopian series of events. Musk allegedly demanded the child be delivered via cesarean section, claiming that doing so would increase brain size—a nod, perhaps, to his ongoing obsession with intellectual optimization.

He also insisted the baby not be circumcised, a demand that clashed with St. Clair’s Jewish heritage and religious convictions. Both requests were denied. Yet in a curious moment of compliance, St. Clair did agree to keep Musk’s name off the birth certificate—a final gesture, perhaps, of compromise. A relic of a once-tentative alliance that quickly unraveled.

The unraveling, it turns out, was swift and brutal. Musk’s longtime fixer, Jared Birchall, allegedly told St. Clair during a two-hour phone call in December 2023 that taking the legal route “always, always leads to a worse outcome for the woman.”

It was meant to be a warning. But St. Clair took it as a dare.

After rejecting the hush money deal, she hired a lawyer, filed for paternity and custody in New York, and began speaking out. Her allegations reveal a Musk far removed from the quirky meme-lord the internet often romanticizes.

In her telling, he is manipulative, controlling, and obsessed with secrecy. When she refused to stay quiet, she claims he slashed her payments in half, forcing her to sell her Tesla Model S just to make ends meet.

To date, Musk has claimed he’s given her $2.5 million, and still provides $500,000 annually. But St. Clair calls these payments “support for your child that you thought was necessary… until you withdrew most of it to maintain control and punish me for ‘disobedience.’” This isn’t merely a financial dispute—it’s a war over truth, legacy, and the very identity of a child born into myth and controversy.

The public sparring has spilled onto X, the platform Musk now owns. Musk continues to troll the media with cryptic emojis and offhand remarks, like declaring “TMZ >> WSJ” in response to the Journal’s detailed article. He has yet to confirm Romulus as his son, though he did write: “I don’t know if the child is mine or not, but am not against finding out.” To many, this reads as pure deflection.

After all, St. Clair says Musk helped choose the baby’s name long before he ever agreed to a paternity test. How does one name a child they don’t believe is theirs?

For St. Clair, the relationship began in May 2023, when Musk allegedly reached out via X, inviting her to visit the company’s San Francisco offices. At the time, she was operations manager at the satirical conservative site Babylon Bee.

Their relationship escalated quickly, including a flight on Musk’s private jet to Rhode Island and a New Year’s trip to the Caribbean, where St. Clair says Romulus was conceived.

Afterward, Musk reportedly suggested she move into a “compound” in Austin with him and other mothers—something she briefly entertained, even arranging playdates between her older son and Musk’s other children. The idea of a compound filled with Musk’s children paints a surreal, cult-like picture—one where the world’s wealthiest man lives not just as a tech titan but as a patriarchal figure, building a literal village of his bloodline. St. Clair eventually pulled away.

Despite all the chaos, she claims Musk continued to reach out. In one message, he reportedly told her, “I want to knock you up again.” Such statements feel less like declarations of love and more like moves in a twisted breeding strategy.

Indeed, the name Romulus—so intertwined with dominance, power, and fratricide—now seems like the purest reflection of Musk’s ambitions and contradictions. He wants heirs, but only on his terms. He wants legacy, but only if he can control the narrative. Romulus, then, is not just a name. It’s a thesis.

Ashley St. Clair sees her child not as a pawn but a person. Her defiance has turned what Musk may have hoped would be a quiet addition to his empire into a battle for recognition. Through her lens, Romulus is not just a founder of a future, but a breaker of silence.

His name, meant to symbolize glory, now represents resistance. The mythology has become reality—but with the roles inverted. It is not the father founding the empire. It is the mother tearing down its walls.

In the end, whether Romulus becomes a symbol of legacy or a curse of hubris will depend not just on Musk’s next move, but on a boy’s journey through a world where his name already means something far bigger than himself. And if Musk truly believes in shaping history, he might want to remember this—Rome may have been founded in power, but it was raised in blood.