Ashley St. Clair, the 27-year-old influencer locked in a custody dispute with Elon Musk over their son, has said she found the billionaire 'intoxicating' when they first met in 2023, attributing her attraction to not having a fully developed prefrontal cortex at the time.
St. Clair made the remarks during an appearance on The Bulwark Podcast with Tim Miller on 17 March. She said Musk had drawn her in with discussions about Schopenhauer and his vision for the future of humanity, and that she was 24 at the time. The prefrontal cortex, which governs decision-making and impulse control, is generally understood to finish developing around age 25.
'Your whole identity is this,' St Clair told Miller. 'There were moments of free-thinking that I had, but you're so wrapped up in it.'
Elon Musk’s “baby mama” Ashley St. Clair laughs awkwardly as she recalls how “interesting” and “intoxicating” he once felt to her younger self.
— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) March 25, 2026
TIM MILLER: “He’s tweeting all night. He’s very manic. He has 13 children… What is it like to be in his orbit?”
ST. CLAIR: “When I… pic.twitter.com/q6VHLXJuRe
St Clair and Musk's Relationship and Custody Dispute
St. Clair and Musk began exchanging messages on X in 2023 and entered a relationship around May that year, according to public records. Their son Romulus was born in September 2024. Musk's name was not placed on the birth certificate.
St. Clair went public with the child's existence on 14 February 2025. She has claimed in court filings that Musk met their son only three times before that date.
A LabCorp paternity test subsequently confirmed Musk as the father with 99.9999 per cent probability, Fortune reported. The Wall Street Journal reported Musk had initially offered St. Clair $15 million (£12 million) and $100,000 (£80,000) per month in exchange for keeping the child's existence private. She declined.
Musk has separately stated he provided St. Clair with $2.5 million (£2 million) and was paying $500,000 (£400,000) annually. St. Clair has accused him of cutting that support by 60 per cent after she went public. She sold her Tesla to cover the shortfall, according to an interview she gave to the Daily Mail in March 2025.
On 12 January 2026, after St. Clair publicly apologised for past anti-trans remarks and expressed regret for harm caused to Musk's transgender daughter Vivian Wilson, Musk wrote on X that he would file for full custody. He claimed her statements implied she might 'transition a one-year-old boy.' St. Clair denied this.
St. Clair has also filed a separate lawsuit against Musk's AI company xAI, alleging its chatbot Grok generated sexually explicit deepfake images of her without consent, including some based on photographs from when she was 14. xAI countersued, claiming she violated its terms of service by filing in New York rather than Texas.
St Clair Labels MAGA a 'Cult,' Says Women Are Leaving
During the same podcast appearance, St Clair described the conservative movement she formerly supported as a cult.
'It is a cult, and what you have to understand is, in any abusive relationship, you become isolated from others,' she said.
St. Clair said she entered conservative politics as a college student but dropped out after following the advice of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. She told Miller she now regrets repeating his talking points against higher education.
'The right has a big issue with what's festering underneath in terms of the sentiment against women,' she told Miller, as reported by WNBC Network. She said conservative women had been reaching out to her privately and were 'waking up to the fact that they've been used as pawns within this fringe movement.'
She predicted the shift would affect Republicans in the 2026 midterms or the 2028 presidential election.
St. Clair also criticised certain women in the Trump White House, saying they hold 'a degree of psychopathy.'
'Obviously, at times I've lacked empathy, being in politics and the things I've said,' she said. 'But the women within the White House really scare me, to be honest.'
St. Clair was formerly a brand ambassador for Turning Point USA and the author of a children's book, Elephants Are Not Birds, which she described as a challenge to transgender acceptance. Her publisher, Brave Books, removed her name from future copies after her January 2026 apology.
