Shivon Zilis is a Canadian venture capitalist, artificial intelligence researcher and project leader who serves as the director of operations and special projects at Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain chip startup. She is said to be the mother of Musk’s secret twins, who were born in November 2021.
Wiki/Biography
Shivon Zilis, also known as Shivon Alice Zilis, was born on Saturday, February 8, 1986, in Markham, Ontario, Canada (age 38; as of 2024). Her zodiac sign is Aquarius. She attended Unionville High School in Markham. She has played ice hockey since she was a child and is seeking an ice hockey scholarship to attend Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Although she received the scholarship, her high grades also qualified her for an academic scholarship to Yale University, where she eventually earned a BA in Arts, Economics, and Philosophy (2008). At Yale, she served as goalie for the Yale women’s ice hockey team and is considered to have one of the best save percentages in history.
Shivon Zilis plays field hockey at Yale University
In addition to playing field hockey, she played drums and guitar while studying at Yale University. Shivon Zilis shared the same interest in literature, and after being inspired by the Canadian band Our Lady Peace, she read Ray Kurzweil’s The Age of Mental Machines, which further sparked her interest in artificial intelligence.
appearance
Height (approximately): 5′6″
Weight (approximately): 55kg
Hair color: dark brown
Eye color: blue
Body measurements (approximately): 34-28-34
family
Shivon Zilis is half Punjabi Indian and half Canadian (Caucasian).
Parents and siblings
Shivon Zilis is the daughter of Richard Zilis and Sharda Zilis. One of her parents is a retired federal government official. Zilis was her parents’ only child.
Shivon Zillis and her mother
Affair/Boyfriend
Shivon Zilis first met Elon Musk in 2016, when she joined Musk’s artificial intelligence startup OpenAI as a director. As of 2022, she is the youngest board member of the same company.
In July 2022, some court documents from Travis County, Texas, revealed that Shivon gave birth to twins Strider and Azure with Elon Musk, the latter born in November 2021 and a Months later Elon Musk welcomed his second child with ex-partner Grimes (Canadian musician and singer); Musk’s first wife Justine Wilson (author ) also gave birth to triplets and twins. Zilis and Musk welcomed their third child in 2024. Documents show that they (Elon Musk and Shivon Zilis) live together in Austin.
Shivon Zilis and her children
Apparently, Zilly and Musk have filed a court request to change the twins’ names; they’re urging the court to add Musk’s last name to the children’s first names and Zilly’s last name as their middle names. After news of Musk’s secret twins broke online, Elon tweeted his support for his extended family. He tweeted,
Doing my best to help solve the underpopulation crisis. A sharp decline in birth rates is the greatest danger civilization has ever faced. I hope you have a big family and congratulations to those who already have one. “
On Twitter, Zilis often expresses support for Musk. She often replies to Musk’s tweets, agreeing with his comments on topics such as utopia, zero-sum games and human nature. At one point, she even changed her timeline on Twitter to reverse chronological order, a practice promoted by Musk. In 2020, Shivon posted a tweet in support of Elon after Musk faced criticism for his decision to move Tesla out of California due to Covid-19 restrictions. In response to a hateful tweet from California Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, Shivon Zilis wrote,
This makes me sad. No one is perfect, but I have never seen anyone go through more personal pain to strive for an inspiring future for humanity—and have done so tirelessly for decades. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but my opinion is that there is no one I respect and admire more than I do. “
Profession
Shivon Zilis originally planned to return to Canada from Connecticut after graduation. However, after being confused by the history of American technology development, she decided to join the American technology giant IBM. She began her career at IBM in 2007 as a thought leadership analyst.
Shivon Zilis on talk show
Soon, she began working for IBM’s microfinance program. As part of the program, Shivon traveled around the world; helping develop systems to provide financial services to small businesses and organizations in developing countries such as Peru and Indonesia, developing mobile finance strategies, Smart Planet portfolio solutions strategies, Bank of China solutions strategies, and working to resolve disruptions in consumer payments.
Shivon Zilis and Justin Trudeau at press conference in Canada
After two years working in internal strategy, Shivon was attracted to the entrepreneurial spirit of her job. She subsequently became involved in building businesses and facilitating partnerships with startups. She is a founding member of Bloomberg Beta, an early-stage venture capital firm leveraging “machine intelligence” funded by Bloomberg LP; the company was founded in March 2011.
Shivon Zilis during a business meeting
In June 2012, she became a board member of Global Communities Charter School. In March 2014, Zilis became a charter member of C100, a non-profit, member-driven organization dedicated to supporting Canadian technology entrepreneurship and investment. She has served on the boards of several major companies, including the Vector Institute in Toronto, Canada, and the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii) in Alberta, Canada. In 2015, she joined Creative Destruction Lab as a researcher.
Shivon Zilis speaks to Creative Destruction Lab employees
In 2016, Zilis joined OpenAI, a non-profit organization founded by Elon Musk, as an advisor. Through her own efforts, she became a board member of the organization in 2020. She joined Musk’s Neuralink in 2017. As of 2022, she serves as Neuralink’s Director of Operations and Special Projects. Shivon served as project director of Tesla’s Autopilot product and chip design team from 2017 to 2019.
Shivon Zilis during the summit
net worth
As of 2022, Zilis’s net worth ranges from $5 million to $10 million.
Facts/Trivia
- In his free time, Shivon Zilis enjoys skiing and hanging out with friends.
- She is an avid animal lover.
- Schiffon identifies with philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and David Hume.
- In an interview, Sivan praised her mother for having big blue eyes. She said,
I just saw the big eyes from the Punjabi side. “
- Zilis was named to Forbes Under 30 Venture Capital List in 2015.
- She has also been included in various prestigious lists such as LinkedIn’s 35 under 35 list.
- In 2022, Zillis deleted her Instagram account after news broke that she had given birth to twins with Elon Musk.
- According to her Twitter bio, Zilis is interested in “artificial intelligence, biological intelligence, and everything in between and beyond.”
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education