‘Held him in my arms when he died’: How Justine Wilson, Elon Musk’s ex-wife and Canadian author, coped with their son Nevada Alexander’s death
Who was Nevada Alexander Musk, and what happened to him?
Nevada Alexander Musk, her and Elon’s firstborn, came into the world in 2002. But just 10 weeks later, tragedy struck. 22 Sept 2026 | 15:04 More than two decades on, Nevada’s death became a talking topic after Justine revisited the experience for Alex Gibney’s documentary, ‘Musk’. In her 2010 first-person essay for Marie Claire, titled ‘I Was a Starter Wife’, Wilson described the terrifying circumstances surrounding Nevada’s death. Per People, the years that followed brought twins in 2004 (Vivian and Griffin) and then triplets in 2006 (Kai, Saxon, Damian).
But for Justine, recounting Nevada’s story isn’t just about historical accuracy or setting the record straight (which, for her, it is, as she openly disputed Elon’s claim that Nevada died in his arms, gently but firmly reminding the world, “I held him in my arms when he died”). He called her visible grieving “emotionally manipulative,” not out of cruelty, but because he simply handled the loss differently. The question of who held Nevada in his final moments became a public conversation when Elon, responding to an online thread, said, “My firstborn child died in my arms.
Losing a child is the kind of heartbreak that can fundamentally change a person’s life, leaving behind memories, unanswered questions, and a grief that does not necessarily fade with time. For Justine Wilson, the Canadian writer and Tech Mogul Elon Musk ’s former wife, the story of her son’s short life has never left her. He stopped breathing suddenly during a routine nap. Paramedics managed to revive him, but by then, the lack of oxygen had done irreversible damage. Nevada was declared brain-dead and spent three more days in intensive care, hooked up to machines, while his parents moved through the nightmare every parent dreads. In the end, Justine and Elon had to let him go. Nevada died in Justine’s arms, which is etched in her memory as an unforgettable moment. It’s a film that peels back some of the billionaire’s public image, showing slices of his private life most people never see. It’s about sharing the weight of the experience, the unique forms that grief can take, and how she kept living in the years after. What happened the day everything changed for the Musk family? As per her recount, Nevada had been laid down for a nap, just as any parent would, and simply stopped breathing, which was a SIDS-related event that left the family in shock. For the unversed, SIDS, or sudden infant death syndrome, is a mysterious tragedy: a seemingly healthy baby goes to sleep and never wakes up, with no final answers even after every test and investigation. Nevada’s official cause of death fell under this category; Justine has always described it in plain, unflinching detail, never shying away from the pain or the questions that followed. After Nevada passed away, Justine wrote that Elon didn’t know what to do with her grief, and, honestly, neither did she. In her Marie Claire essay, which was a brutally honest account of their marriage and its losses, she described how Elon virtually demanded life keep moving, while she felt pulled under by sorrow. For Justine, though, the sadness was physical, all-consuming; it was a silence that followed her for months. She eventually took the advice of a nanny who saw her struggling and went to therapy, gradually finding her way to some kind of peace. Seeking to fill the void, Justine and Elon moved quickly to try for more children. Less than two months after Nevada died, she found herself in an IVF clinic. The Musk family grew rapidly, but Justine writes candidly that more children didn’t erase Nevada’s absence, or make the loss any easier to bear. She described the pain as a spiral that pulled her into distraction and, sometimes, numbness. It’s interesting how tragedy can bring old wounds out into the open, even years later. I felt his last heartbeat. Justine addressed it quietly, without any drama, saying that she was holding Nevada when he died. She explained why that detail matters: it was hers to carry, and she needed her truth spoken out loud. Their disagreement wasn’t really a public spat so much as an example of how two people can remember life’s worst moment differently, or, at the very least, cling to the details that help them keep going. For Justine Wilson, no official definition or medical explanation ever touches the reality or the meaning of what happened. Decades later, the memory is just as raw, just as personal: a mother’s story of loss, love, and the long road of grief. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test Get the latest Lifestyle News and more. Download the TOI app.
She grew up in southern Ontario, published her first fantasy novel, ‘BloodAngel’, in 2005, and followed it with ‘Uninvited’ in 2007. Their marriage ended in 2008, with five surviving children, and each continued their separate lives.
Their marriage, she mentioned in her essay, became increasingly lopsided as his career took off: he declared early on that he was “the alpha in this relationship,” and she realized later that, for all the children and public success, she always wanted more balance and partnership between them. Justine’s career, too, moved forward, though not without bumps.
She had met Elon as a college student at Queen’s University, long before PayPal or SpaceX, before the huge wealth or the headlines.
Because not every sleep-related infant death is classified as SIDS, the distinction matters.
SIDS is one category within the broader term sudden unexpected infant death (SUID), which also includes accidental suffocation and strangulation in a sleeping environment and deaths from unknown causes, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) refers to the sudden, unexplained death of an infant younger than one year old that remains unexplained even after a thorough investigation. The exact cause can only be established through a proper investigation.