Washington, United States:
Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who met Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the latter’s visit to the US, was accompanied by his partner Shivon Zilis and their two out of three children – Azure and Strider. Ms Zilis, a top employee at Mr Musk’s brain chip startup Neuralink, has stayed largely out of the spotlight over the years. However, this is the second such appearance she made alongside Mr Musk in the last six months.
Who is Shivon Zilis?
Shivon Zilis, 39, was born in Canada and is reportedly a Yale University graduate. Her mother, Sharda N, is Indian, while her father, Richard Zilis is Canadian.
Ms Zilis works as the director of operations and special projects at Neuralink. Previously, she has also worked as a project director for Tesla between 2017 to 2019. She has also been an advisor to Sam Altman’s OpenAI and has been a founding member of the investment team at Bloomberg Beta where she led as many as nine investments since its launch.
In 2015, Ms Zilis was listed on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list of venture capitalists. She was also named among LinkedIn’s 35 Under 35.
Ms Zilis is known to be Mr Musk’s present partner. The two welcomed two children, Azure and Strider, in 2021 – the same year when the Tesla CEO had his second child with Grimes. In 2024, Ms Zilis and Mr Musk had a third child together. While the duo never made any official statement about their relationship, it was reported that Ms Zilis moved in at the Texas compound that Mr Musk built for all his 11 children.
The two were seen together in November last year while attending a gala together at US President Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago estate. However, she stayed in the background as Mr Musk posed with their daughter Azure.
PM Modi-Elon Musk meeting
PM Modi met Mr Musk on Thursday in Washington during his two-day visit to the US, hours before his discussion with Mr Trump. According to PM Modi, the duo discussed key topics such as space, mobility, technology, and innovation. They also reportedly discussed strengthening collaboration between Indian and US entities in innovation, space exploration, artificial intelligence, and sustainable development and also touched on opportunities to deepen cooperation in emerging technologies, entrepreneurship, and good governance.
After the meeting at the Blair House, PM Modi gifted Mr Musk’s children three books – The Crescent Moon by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, The Great RK Narayan Collection, and Pandit Vishnu Sharma’s Panchatantra.
PM Modi shared pictures of the meeting in which Mr Musk’s children can be seen reading the books. “It was also a delight to meet Mr Elon Musk’s family and to talk about a wide range of subjects,” he wrote in the post on X.
It was also a delight to meet Mr. @elonmusk‘s family and to talk about a wide range of subjects! pic.twitter.com/0WTEqBaVpT
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 13, 2025
PM Modi and Musk – who is overseeing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the Trump regime – have met several times in the past. In 2015, he visited the Tesla facility in San Jose when he was given a personal tour by the Tesla CEO.