SINGAPORE - American billionaire entrepreneur and Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, 51, made jaws drop last week when it was revealed that he secretly welcomed twins in November 2021, taking his kid count to nine.
The mother is Ms Shivon Zilis, a 36-year-old Canadian project director at his Neuralink company.
The twins' arrival came just weeks before Mr Musk and his former partner, Canadian singer Grimes, welcomed a baby girl, Exa, via a surrogate in December 2021.
They also share a two-year-old son, X.
Mr Musk already has five children with his first wife Justine Wilson, including Griffin, 18, and 16-year-old triplets Kai, Damian and Sax.
Another of their children, 18, legally changed her name to disassociate herself from Mr Musk earlier this year.
In 2002, their first child, a boy, died at 10 weeks of sudden infant death syndrome.
Mr Musk has strong opinions on increasing the birth rate. At Wall Street Journal’s annual CEO Council in December last year, he stated that there are “not enough people” in the world. In what seemed to be a response to his latest baby news, he tweeted: “Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis. A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilisation faces by far.”
He added in a follow-up tweet: "I hope you have big families and congrats to those who already do."
Mr Musk is ranked by Forbes as the world’s richest person with an estimated net worth of US$237.1 billion (S$330 billion). Despite the ongoing debacle of his Twitter deal - which he is attempting to pull out of, risking a possible 10-figure penalty payout - he will still have a vast fortune for his many children to inherit.
And over the weekend, he announced plans to "significantly" increase childcare benefits at his companies.
He tweeted: "Kids are worth it if at all possible."
Here are several celebrities sowing their seeds with wild abandon.
Nick Cannon, 41
Kid count: Six, with two on the way
Also sharing Mr Musk's fatherhood goals is American rapper-actor Cannon, who chimed in after Mr Musk's tweet, saying: "Right there with you, my brother."
Cannon has had kids with five different women, only one of whom he married but eventually divorced, and is expecting two more bundles of joy.
And none of them was an accident, he has claimed.
He is dad to 11-year-old twins Monroe and Moroccan with his former wife, pop star Mariah Carey, has five-year-old Golden and two-year-old Powerful Queen with model Brittany Bell, and one-year-old twins Zion and Zillion with DJ Abby De La Rosa.
He also fathered a son, Zen, with model Alyssa Scott, but the child died in December 2021 at five months old after being diagnosed with brain cancer.
After the tragic loss, Cannon, who has said that he does not feel monogamy is healthy, announced he would be celibate for a while and reportedly went for a vasectomy consultation.
Obviously, that was short-lived.
In January, Cannon revealed another little one is on the way with model Bre Tiesi, due in the coming weeks.
He is also expecting another child with De La Rosa, due in October.
You really cannot keep a man like Cannon down. At least, not until he turns 45, the age when he feels he "should chill".
On the Big Tigger Morning Show, he got candid about what it is like to co-parent with multiple women.
Asked if "all the baby mamas get along", he replied: "They don't have to, they all get along with me."
When the radio host brought up that Cannon takes maternity photos with each of the mothers, Cannon said he believes "everyone deserves that".
"I don't keep secrets. They know how I move. I multitask," he added.
As for whether he sees any additional kids in his future, he quipped: "Isn't there always? I just want to be responsible as a father... The best I can possibly be, and lean into it.
"I love children, but I wasn't setting out to be Father Abraham, I just embrace it."
On Instagram, Cannon jokingly hyped up his profile piece in a recent issue of Men's Health magazine by posting: "We discuss that there is nothing more healthy than a virile man. Go forth and multiply."
In the article itself, he opened up about how he stays present in each of his kids' lives and takes immense pride in it.
He said: "Contrary to popular belief, I'm probably engaged throughout my children's day, more often than the average adult can be. If I'm not physically in the same city with my kids, I'm talking to them before they go to school via FaceTime. When I am (in the same city, I'm) driving my kids to school, making sure I pick them up."
He added that he is present for their extracurricular activities. "I'm involved in everything - from coaching to having guitar lessons with my daughter every week."
Alec Baldwin, 64
Kid count: Six, with one on the way
The Baldwin bunch sure are getting bigger, with American actor Alec Baldwin (above, with his family) and his yoga instructor wife Hilaria, 38, are expecting their seventh child, a girl.
She will join her siblings Carmen, nine, Rafael, seven, Leonardo, six, Romeo, four, Eduardo, two, and Maria, one (via surrogate).
Baldwin posted a clip of Maria on Instagram in April and captioned it: “People ask why. This is why. Being a parent is the ultimate journey.”
He also shares model-daughter Ireland Baldwin, 26, with his former wife, actress Kim Basinger.
The new baby is coming at a stressful time for the sexagenarian, who has found himself embroiled in a wrongful death lawsuit.
In October last year, he accidentally misfired a prop gun on the set of western film Rust, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
At the time of the new pregnancy announcement in March, the couple told People magazine: “We have ‘somos un buen equipo’ engraved on our wedding bands. We say that to each other all the time at home – that we’re a good team.
“One of the most beautiful things our children have experienced with a big family is how the heart can grow with every new sibling. Our capacity to love continues to expand and we can’t wait to embrace our new little one this fall.”
Taylor Hanson, 39
Kid count: Seven
The American singer-musician and one-time teen heart-throb was the face of 1990s pop boy band Hanson, alongside his brothers Isaac, 41, and Zac, 36.
Today, the trio of young dads - who are the elder three of seven siblings - have 15 children between them.
Taylor has the most, having welcomed seven children - Ezra, 19, Penelope, 17, River, 15, Viggo, 13, Wilhelmina, nine, Indiana, three, and Maybellene, 18 months - with wife Natalie, 38.
But his notoriously prolific progeny will cease to increase.
He told ET Online: "We've all been incredibly blessed with amazing kids and families. I've always taken it one at a time, that led us to seven, so I'm just going to hold right now."
For now, the group - best known for their catchy 1997 hit MMMBop - are celebrating 30 years together.
They released their latest album Red Green Blue in May, but have still managed to prioritise family life while on the road touring.
Taylor told People magazine: "The job of being a dad is to sacrifice everything you want for that kid. I may be in the middle of meeting some famous musician but, sorry, I've got to call my daughter and talk to her about her day."
Eddie Murphy, 61
Kid count: 10
When it comes to quantity, the Hollywood star can tell everyone else to hold his beer.
Like Cannon, Murphy co-parents his whopping brood with five women.
He had two sons back to back with two then-girlfriends around the end of the 1980s - Eric, 33, with Paulette McNeely, and Christian, 31, with Tamara Hood.
Meanwhile, former wife Nicole Mitchell is the mother of five of his children: Bria, 32, Miles, 29, Shayne, 27, Zola, 22, and Bella, 20.
Murphy then fathered Angel, 15, with former Spice Girl and British singer Melanie Brown, and has a six-year-old girl Izzy and four-year-old son Max with his current fiancee, Australian model Paige Butcher, 43.
The comedian is used to getting split reactions when people learn he has 10 kids.
He quipped on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2019: "Men look at me like, 'He's crazy. How much did that cost?'
In an interview with British newspaper The Mirror in 2021, he said his kids always come before his career, calling them the "centre of everything".
He added: "The idea of being out there and doing three movies a year, that's over... I realised that if you put your children first, you never make a bad decision.
"I am so blessed with my kids, I don't have one bad seed. I don't have any like, 'Oh, you are the one.' My kids are so great, normal people and nobody is like the Hollywood jerk kid."
