In a rare and explosive public outburst, Elon Musk has attacked The Wall Street Journal, calling the publication “worse than TMZ” after it published a lengthy investigative report alleging the billionaire is secretly trying to build a “legion” of children. The report, which dives deep into Musk’s private life, his growing number of offspring, and his alleged attempts to manage their mothers through wealth and legal silence, has touched a nerve — one Musk couldn’t ignore.

Just hours after the article was released, Musk took to his platform, X, to post a short but brutal response: “TMZ >> WSJ.”
Three words, delivered with disdain. The implication was clear: Musk considers the Journal — long seen as a bastion of serious financial journalism — to be beneath tabloid gossip rags.

This isn’t the first time Musk has shown contempt for the Journal. Earlier this year, in January, he labeled the outlet “trash” after it published a separate exposé alleging concerns among Tesla and SpaceX directors over Musk’s alleged drug use. But this time, the sting hits closer to home. The headline of the new article reads like something from a dystopian drama: “The Tactics Elon Musk Uses to Manage His ‘Legion’ of Babies — and Their Mothers.”

Accompanied by a portrait-style photo of Ashley St. Clair, a 26-year-old conservative influencer who recently went public with claims that Musk paid her to stay silent after she gave birth to his child, the story pulls no punches. It accuses Musk of secretly fathering more children than publicly acknowledged, manipulating women with money, controlling their narratives through non-disclosure agreements, and pursuing a bizarre, high-stakes plan to populate the future with his own bloodline.

According to the article, Musk’s motivations are tied to his long-standing belief that declining birthrates will lead to population collapse, something he’s described as a greater threat than global warming. The Journal alleges that Musk’s solution to this “crisis” is deeply personal: create as many children as possible, preferably with intelligent or high-status women, and raise them — or at least fund them — quietly, while running the world’s most influential companies and advising political leaders like Donald Trump.

In the Journal’s telling, Musk is managing a private “harem drama”, as multiple women — many of them with children fathered by him — navigate life on the billionaire’s terms. One of those women is St. Clair, who broke her silence and revealed that Musk offered her $15 million and $100,000 per month to keep their son, Romulus, a secret until he turned 21.

She refused. And now, she’s the face of the article that Musk clearly wishes never existed.

In response to the piece, Musk didn’t issue a formal denial. He didn’t correct any facts. He didn’t challenge the narrative point by point. Instead, he mocked the paper’s credibility, drawing a direct comparison to TMZ, a publication often dismissed as tabloid fare.

For someone like Musk — who wields influence not only in the tech and business world, but also in global politics, defense, and even space — the comparison is more than an insult. It’s an attempt to publicly invalidate the Journal’s revelations by reducing them to mere gossip.

But this is not gossip. The article outlines serious claims: that Musk has fathered more than the 14 children currently acknowledged, that he uses money, legal pressure, and strategic silence to manage relationships with the mothers, and that he has even encouraged the use of surrogates to accelerate reproduction.

The report quotes a text message Musk allegedly sent to St. Clair: “To reach legion-level before the apocalypse, we will need to use surrogates.”

This single line reveals the scope of Musk’s thinking. His goal isn’t a big family—it’s a dynasty, a Mars-bound empire, a civilization reboot seeded with his DNA. He sees himself not just as a father, but as a founder of future humanity.

The article suggests Musk treats his reproductive life with the same intensity he brings to rocket design or AI regulation—a project to be optimized, scaled, and controlled.

And control is key. The Journal claims that many of Musk’s arrangements with mothers are shrouded in legal agreements, sometimes enforced by his right-hand man, Jared Birchall. Women are allegedly warned that if they speak out or seek outside counsel, financial retaliation will follow. Confidentiality, in Musk’s world, is not optional — it is the price of participation.

But that system is beginning to crack. St. Clair isn’t the only one resisting. Grimes, who has three children with Musk, recently criticized him publicly for involving their young son in political events and failing to respond during a medical crisis. Musk’s estranged daughter, Vivian, no longer speaks to him at all and has changed her legal identity.

And now, the Wall Street Journal — a publication Musk once considered worthy of his company’s biggest announcements — has laid bare the structure of his private empire.

The fallout has already begun. Musk’s reputation as a futurist visionary is being tested by stories not of innovation, but of hidden children, secrecy, and emotional distance. The “baby legion” narrative turns Musk’s proud pronatalism into something colder, more calculated. This isn’t about family values.

It’s about numbers. Strategy. And, as some critics argue, a dangerous obsession with legacy that borders on the messianic.

Still, Musk shows no sign of retreat. In his mind, the only thing more dangerous than a falling stock price or a delayed launch is a world without enough babies. And if others won’t step up, he will. Repeatedly.

His contempt for the WSJ may be personal, but it is also tactical. By branding the publication as “worse than TMZ,” Musk is attempting to reduce legitimate investigative journalism into rumor and noise.

But the story’s details are already out in the open. The image of Musk as a man racing against extinction with secret children and NDA-bound mothers cannot be undone by a meme or a sarcastic post.

This moment matters. Because for all Musk’s proclamations about saving civilization, the very civilization he seeks to save is now questioning the cost — not just in dollars, but in truth, transparency, and human dignity.

The world is watching. And no matter how loudly Elon Musk shouts “trash,” the story of the child legion has already been born.