At the beginning of July we posted an article titled, "Sergey Brin – The Sixth Richest Person In The World – Just Filed For Divorce." We didn't have a ton of inside info at that point, but any time one of the 10 richest people in the world files for divorce, even if it's for a very bland reason, it's newsworthy. Well, we now have a bit more inside info, and… as it turns out… the reason Sergey filed for divorce from his wife of four years, Nicole Shanahan, was the opposite of bland.
First, a correction. Sergey actually filed for divorce in January 2021, not July as we stated in our article from earlier this month. The filing just became public a few weeks ago as it works away through the Santa Clara, Ca court system. Furthermore, in his January filing Sergey listed December 15 as his official date of separation from Nicole Shanahan. This will be important in a moment.
And now the scandalous update.
In Brin's divorce filing, he cited "irreconcilable differences" as the reason for the conclusion of his 4-year marriage. According to a breaking Wall Street Journal article, in this case "irreconcilable differences" apparently meant Sergey found out that Nicole slept with Elon Musk last December. And according to Elon's private jet movements, it was an extremely short affair…
(Photo by JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images)
Art Basel
According to sources close to Nicole Shanahan that spoke with the Wall Street Journal, Elon and Nicole allegedly had an affair in "early December 2021" while they were both attending Art Basel.
Art Basel is a multi-day art fair that tends to attract the richest and coolest people in the world for a three day festival of partying and looking at art. According to Art Basel's website, the December 2021 fair took place between December 1 and 3.
Was Elon in Miami between December 1st and 3rd? If only someone created a Twitter account that tracked all of Elon's private jet movements…
🙂
In case you didn't know, a brilliant college kid named Jack Sweeney created Twitter account called @ElonJet which uses public transponder data to automatically track every flight taken by Elon's Gulfstream G650. Jack created similar trackers for a bunch of celebrities and billionaires.
I just scrolled back to see what Elon's jet was up to back in December, and what do you know…
On the afternoon of December 1, 2021, Elon's jet took a 2 hour flight from Austin, Texas to… Miami! Here's the automated tracker tweet:
Landed in Miami, Florida, US. Apx. flt. time 1 Hour : 57 Mins. pic.twitter.com/OgqGjO4cyF
— ElonJet (@ElonJet) December 2, 2021
An Extremely Quick Affair
Before digging into the details, I pictured Elon sticking around Miami for a several day affair… literally and figuratively. That's not the case.
My Twitter account is in Pacific Standard Time. According to @ElonJet, in PST Elon's jet landed in Miami at 6:34 pm and then departed just FOUR HOURS later at 10:45pm. In local EST, that means Elon apparently landed at 9:45 pm and took off at 1:45 am, technically the early morning of December 2.
Took off from Miami, Florida, US. Going to Brownsville, Texas, US (BRO, Brownsville South Padre Island International Airport) arriving in ~2h18m. pic.twitter.com/x0vICZrOpH
— ElonJet (@ElonJet) December 2, 2021
If the reports are true, Elon and Sergey's wife Nicole hooked up in that extremely brief window. After subtracting driving from the airport to, presumably, a hotel, we're talking about a 3 hour window to hook up. If true, this clearly was not an accidental "whoops, we were hanging out all weekend drinking and ended up sleeping together."
Not to be crass, but this feels like a precision hit.
(Photo by JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images)
December 15 Divorce Filing
According to the friends who spoke with the WSJ, Brin and Nicole Shanahan were separated when the affair allegedly occurred, but they were still living together.
As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, Sergey officially filed for divorce in early January 2022. In that filing, he listed their date of separation as December 15.
Sergey officially filed for divorce on December 15.
Is it fair to assume that whatever happened in Miami didn't stay in Miami? Who knows when or how word got back to Sergey. But it clearly did.
Old Friends
Perhaps grossest of all, Elon and Sergey have been friends for decades. Sergey was one of Tesla's first private investors AND he almost single-handedly saved the company from going under in 2008 with an injection of $500,000 in cash. A couple years later he took possession of one of Tesla's first Model S cars.
In 2013, a time when Tesla was plagued by production problems and was circling the drain, Elon came within an inch of selling the company to Google outright for $6 billion. He actually had an agreement in place with Sergey and his Google co-founder Larry Page. In the months it took for their respective lawyers to finalize the deal, Tesla's fortunes improved and Elon ended up declining. FYI, today Tesla is worth $850 billion.
Even after walking away, Elon and Sergey stayed friendly. In 2015 Elon gave Sergey a "Founders Series" Model X, one of the first four that were produced.
The Fallout
According to the WSJ, in the fallout of the affair he has instructed his financial advisors to sell his personal investments in all of Elon's companies.
And according to the WSJ, at a party at some point in 2022, Elon and Sergey bumped into each other in person. Elon reportedly "dropped to one knee in front of Mr. Brin and apologized profusely for the transgression, begging for forgiveness."
Elon's Personal Life
So on December 1, Elon was allegedly having an affair with Sergey Brin's wife. At some point later that month he welcome a second child, via surrogate, with ex-girlfriend Grimes. At some point in the weeks prior, Elon welcomed twins born to an executive at his brain startup Neuralink.
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