Elon Musk recently revealed that his partner, Shivon Zilis, has Indian roots and that their child’s middle name, Sekhar, is a tribute to Nobel Prize–winning astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has revealed that his partner, Shivon Zilis, is “half-Indian,” and that one of their children carries the middle name ‘Sekhar’ as a tribute to Nobel Prize–winning astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.
During a conversation with investor Nikhil Kamath on his show People by WTF, Musk shared, “One of my sons with her—his middle name is Sekhar, after Chandrasekhar.”
When Kamath asked whether Zilis had ever spent time in India, Musk explained that she was adopted as a baby and raised in Canada. “I think her father was an exchange student at a university or something like that. I’m not sure of all the details, but she was given up for adoption,” he added.
Musk and Zilis have four children together: twins Strider and Azure, a daughter Arcadia, and a son Seldon Lycurgus. Zilis works as a director of operations and special projects at Neuralink, one of Musk’s companies.
Who was Nobel-winning astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar?
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar: Life, Legacy, and Nobel Prize-Winning Contributions
Born on 19 October 1910 in Lahore, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar—widely known as S. Chandrasekhar—was a legendary Indian-American astrophysicist whose groundbreaking work transformed our understanding of stars. He was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics for his pioneering theoretical research on how stars evolve and what determines their ultimate fate.
Chandrasekhar came from a family of scientific excellence; he was the nephew of C.V. Raman, the 1930 Nobel Prize winner in Physics. His famous discovery, known as the Chandrasekhar Limit, became a cornerstone in astrophysics, explaining how massive stars collapse into white dwarfs, neutron stars, or black holes. Many major scientific concepts and institutions—including the Chandra X-ray Observatory—are named in his honor.
He completed his early education at Presidency College in Madras before moving to the University of Cambridge for advanced studies. Most of his professional career was spent at the University of Chicago, where he taught, conducted influential research at the Yerkes Observatory, and served as the long-time editor of The Astrophysical Journal (1952–1971).
In September 1936, Chandrasekhar married Lalitha Doraiswamy, a fellow student from his Presidency College days. He later became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1953. Chandrasekhar passed away in 1995 after suffering a heart attack, leaving behind an extraordinary scientific legacy. His wife, Lalitha, lived a long life and passed away on 2 September 2013 at the age of 102.
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