Google co-founder and Alphabet board member Sergey Brin reportedly told his financial advisors to sell off his investments in Elon Musk-owned companies after finding out that Musk had an affair with Brin’s wife, Nicole Shanahan.
It is not known how large his investments in Musk-run companies are or if any sales took place, but the Wall Street Journal is reporting that people familiar with the situation reported that Brin and Shanahan divorced in January after Brin became aware of the affair.
The same source indicated that the longtime friendship between Brin and Musk understandably became strained in the time leading up to Brin’s decision to sell off his Musk-related investments. Brin previously invested $500,000 into Tesla in 2006, according to Crunchbase he has exited that investment.
According to the Journal, the affair between Musk and Shanahan began in December 2021 while Brin and Shanahan were separated, but lived together. Their marriage was on the rocks due to the stresses of raising their three-year-old daughter while dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. They cited “irreconcilable differences” in their divorce filings, which came just weeks after Brin learned of the affair.
Meanwhile, Musk was recently separated from his ex-girlfriend and mother of two of his children, Canadian experimental pop musician Grimes, when he and Shanahan started their relationship. Musk and Grimes’ second child was born via surrogate the same month as Musk and Shanahan’s relationship started.
Musk currently owns Tesla, Neuralink, SpaceX, and The Boring Company. Google, which is owned by Alphabet, was part of a $1 billion investment into SpaceX in 2016.