Elon Musk's ex Ashley St Clair warns world's richest man is manipulating reality using X to create manufactured crisis in the world 'before civil war'

Elon Musk is facing a sharp warning from Ashley St Clair, the former Maga influencer and mother of one of his children, who has accused the billionaire of using X to intensify divisions that she believes could have serious consequences in the real world.

Speaking at the Venice Film Festival premiere of Musk, a new four-hour documentary by filmmaker Alex Gibney, St Clair said Musk’s activity on the social media platform could not simply be dismissed as online commentary. She argued that the conversations and conflicts amplified on X were spilling beyond the platform.

“He is stoking flames that don’t exist in the real world,” St Clair said when asked whether Musk was merely concerned about the possibility of civil conflict or was actively contributing to the tensions himself.


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Her comments came as the documentary examined Musk’s political views, his influence over X and his growing involvement in debates that extend well beyond technology and business.

St Clair, who had previously supported Donald Trump and has since said she regrets her political activism, described Musk’s approach as a source of what she called “deliberate division”.

She said she believed the consequences could become severe if the situation was not brought under control.

St Clair recalls Musk’s reference to civil war

St Clair also described the circumstances surrounding the birth of her son with Musk in 2024. According to her account, Musk sent her a message saying he wanted to have a child with her because he needed a “legion of children before the civil war”. The pair have since separated.

The comments have added another layer to the debate surrounding Musk’s publicly expressed concerns about declining birth rates, social instability and the future of civilisation.

St Clair also alleged that Musk’s team later offered her $40 million as a lump-sum payment along with a monthly payment of $100,000 if she agreed to a non-disclosure agreement. She said the proposal was withdrawn after she declined to sign it.

Her account forms part of Gibney’s broader examination of Musk, whose private life, political activism and business empire have increasingly become intertwined.

Musk has turned X into a political megaphone

Since buying Twitter in 2022 and renaming it X, Musk has made the platform an important vehicle for expressing his own political opinions. The billionaire has repeatedly used his enormous following to comment on elections, political movements and controversial figures, often generating intense reactions from supporters and critics alike.

The documentary comes against that backdrop, portraying Musk not simply as the entrepreneur behind electric vehicles and rockets, but as a businessman whose influence has expanded into politics and public discourse.

One recent example highlighted in the article was Musk's reaction to the strong showing by Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland in state elections in Saxony-Anhalt. Musk responded to a post by AfD co-leader Alice Weidel with the words, “Well done!”

For critics, such interventions illustrate the scale of Musk’s political influence. His supporters, meanwhile, have frequently presented his activity on X as an expression of free speech and an alternative to what they see as traditional media gatekeeping.

Gibney connects Musk’s worldview to his childhood

Gibney, known for documentaries examining subjects ranging from corporate scandals to Vladimir Putin and the US military, said Musk’s apparent fixation on societal collapse may have roots in his childhood in South Africa.

The filmmaker described Musk’s early years as difficult and traumatic and suggested that some of those experiences may have influenced the way he views the world today.

“To some extent he’s now playing out that trauma on the rest of us,” Gibney said in Venice, offering that as his interpretation of Musk’s behaviour.

It is a central theme of the documentary, which was filmed over three years and attempts to chart Musk’s transformation from a technology entrepreneur into one of the world’s most powerful businessmen and political personalities.

The film runs for four hours, giving Gibney room to examine several stages of Musk’s career, from his early software ventures to the companies that made him a global figure, including his electric vehicle and space businesses.

From technology entrepreneur to political force

Gibney said his interest in Musk ultimately went beyond the familiar story of an ambitious technology entrepreneur who became extraordinarily wealthy. In his view, Musk’s rise reflects an older pattern involving wealth, influence and the ability to shape public perception.

“What I discovered was that the story of Musk was not a new tech story,” Gibney said.

He described it instead as an example of what he sees as an old form of power operating through modern technology and social media. The documentary therefore places Musk’s ownership of X at the centre of a larger question: how much influence should one extremely wealthy individual have over a platform used by millions of people to consume news, debate politics and form opinions?

That question has become harder to separate from Musk himself. His businesses, political views, online activity and personal relationships have increasingly become part of the same public conversation.

For St Clair, however, the issue goes further than Musk’s personal opinions.

Her warning is that the constant amplification of political conflict on X can eventually affect behaviour outside the internet — turning online arguments into real-world tensions.

And that, she suggested in Venice, is why Musk’s use of the platform can no longer be treated as simply another billionaire posting on social media.