With news of the new twins that Elon Musk and a Neuralink executive share, things become complicated for him.

Insider published an explosive story last month about a SpaceX flight attendant who claimed that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk had proposed to her in 2016. The report was published by Insider, which paid $250,000 to remain anonymous. Musk called the story a "politically motivated hit piece," while SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell, who is also the COO, came to Musk's defense via an email to the entire company. He wrote: "Personallly, I believe that the allegations are false. Not because I work with Elon but because I have been working closely with him for over 20 years and have never seen or heard anything resembling this."

Alas, Shotwell and all other Musk executives are in a more difficult position thanks to a new and much more damaging Insider Report.

The story was published late today afternoon. "Insider has obtained court documents that show that Elon Musk had twins last November with Shivon Zilis, one of his top executives." Musk, 51, and Zilis (36), filed a petition to change their names to allow them to have their father's last and their mother's middle names. '"

Austin judge approved the order in May. The report states that the twins were born weeks prior to Musk and Claire Boucher's December birth via surrogate.

Zilis, or someone acting on her behalf, has already removed any reference to Neuralink from a site about her background and dismantled her LinkedIn profile.

This page was last updated to state that Zilis's work experience -- a Yale graduate who started her career at IBM and then invested for Bloomberg Beta from early 2016 -- also included OpenAI, Tesla, and Neuralink.

They all have strong ties to Musk. He founded Neuralink and cofounded OpenAI. Musk assumed the leadership of Tesla in 2008.

According to Insider, Zilis met Musk for the first time in 2016. She was a director at OpenAI and is currently the youngest member of its board.

She reportedly joined Tesla in 2017 as a project manager.

Zilis is currently the director of operations and special project for Neuralink. Musk is also a co-CEO.

According to the outlet, Zilis was recently mentioned as someone Musk could tap for Twitter leadership if his $44 billion acquisition plan goes through as planned.

We have not independently verified Insider’s account. Musk, who is often active on Twitter, did not respond to requests from Insider for comment. Zilis did, however. Musk last month tweeted that falling birthrates in the U.S. were a "demographic catastrophe" and added, "I mean... I'm doing my bit haha."

Beyond the question of how many children Musk intends to have -- it looks like he has at most nine with different partners -- the biggest question is whether these companies have fraternization policy that prohibits romantic relationships between managers and reporting staff members.

Although most companies of the scale of SpaceX and Tesla prohibit the dating of employees who are not separated by two levels of the chain of command (which is what most companies of the same size do), Musk is well-known for breaking the rules. The Tesla employee handbook, 2020, isn't quite standard. It warns that "If you don't phone and don't show for work, we will assume that you are a jerk." Or you will be kicked out.

This new report, even if Tesla, Neuralink and OpenAI don't have policies preventing fraternization (where Musk disassociated in 2019), is extremely problematic. Musk's secret children and his direct report will be a distraction for other staffers. You can picture the conversation at the water cooler. It can be detrimental to morale, which Tesla would not need given all the other battles it is currently waging with its employees. If Musk is found guilty of abusing the power he held as CEO, it could open Musk's companies up to Zilis-type lawsuits.

Last but not least, the U.S. government will likely not view the development favorably. The administration has been hostile to Tesla under the Biden administration. (The government is also a major customer of SpaceX, Zilis having not been employed.)

The report shows that Musk's board of directors is quite lax. It puts Shotwell and other execs in a difficult position to assure employees that Musk has the same level of self-control, strong judgment and laser-like focus on their success as he claims. She is likely to be asked to do this tonight, possibly in an email that goes across the company.

We are proud of her job.