Elon Musk has been accused of ‘abandoning his son’ by social media users after a resurfaced video showed the four-year-old walking off a stage without supervision.
The clip, which has since gone viral, shows the Tesla billionaire exiting the stage at what is thought to be at a MAGA rally in January. He is seen walking down a metal staircase his son X trailing behind.
The youngster, who often attends events with Musk, appears to wobble as he holds the handrail and descends down the steps, no adult accompanying him. X even waved at the adoring crowd as he followed after his father.
The video shows the SpaceX founder walking towards a crowd, without X nearby, before flashing back to the stage. The four-year-old is nowhere to be seen.
It is unclear what Musk did in the seconds after the camera stopped rolling, but social media users were still quick to judge, alleging he put X in a ‘very dangerous’ situation and seemingly ‘forgot he had his son with him’.
‘Why is this man abandoning his toddler on dangerous metal stairs?’ one critic slammed, as another wrote: ‘Definitely a candidate for Father of the Year – not.’
Others accused Musk of having ‘actually forgot he had his son with him’ and claimed that he only brings X with him to events ‘for show’.
The fresh wave of online criticism comes just days after the tech titan’s own father Errol Musk delivered a brutal opinion of his son’s parenting skills and blamed Elon for the death of his first son Nevada, who tragically passed away at ten months old.
Errol, speaking with Joshua Rubin on the Wide Awake podcast, said Elon ‘hasn’t been a good dad’ and claimed that Nevada spent ‘too much time’ in the care of nannies before he died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
Elon Musk has been accused of ‘abandoning his son’ by social media users after a video showed the four-year-old walking off a stage without supervision. The now-viral clip shows the Tesla billionaire exiting the stage wand walking down a metal staircase at a suspected MAGA rally with his son X trailing behind
The youngster, who often attends events with Musk, appears to wobble as he holds the handrail and descends down the steps, no adult accompanying him. X even waved at the adoring crowd as he followed after his father
Internet sleuths allege the viral video of X was captured at Donald Trump’s pre-Inauguration rally on January 19.
The four-year-old frequently accompanied his father at MAGA rallies and parties during Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.
Social media users, who have routinely questioned why Musk brings the young boy with him to events, are now seemingly outraged by the billionaire’s conduct at the rally.
‘This makes me sick,’ one critic said of the video.
‘A child coming down a metal staircase alone is VERY dangerous, and shows insufficient care for the child,’ another tweeted.
‘He clearly does not have that child in mind,’ one critic said of Musk.
‘Prime example of when men think having money is what make them a “great father”,’ wrote another.
‘He is just DOGE-ing responsibility,’ one quipped, poking fun at Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has led sweeping cuts targeting bank regulators, forest workers, rocket scientists and tens of thousands of other government employees.
Social media users were still quick to judge, alleging Elon Musk put four-year-old X in a ‘very dangerous’ situation and seemingly ‘forgot he had his son with him’
Some social media users rushed to Musk’s defense, claiming that X ‘had plenty of protecting eyes on him and Elon knows that’.
‘Little X has a number of security guards assigned to him. He will be fine!’ one person tweeted.
‘Eh, I’m no Elon fan, but not that big of a deal. He was only 10 feet away,’ another echoed.
‘So sad! Imagine just leaving a child with the best security detail in the world looking after him….’ another sarcastically said.
‘He does it just right,’ another wrote of the exit from the stage. ‘[X] can do it and it helps the child to become independent and self-confident.’
Others went on argue that ‘even the best of parents sometimes do stuff like this’.
‘Parents forgetting about their children is a normal thing I see this all the time at Disneyland and even at malls,’ wrote one social media user.
‘I leave my children like this all the time (while always knowing exactly where they are),’ echoed another. ‘It teaches them to follow/keep up, find their way to me, that there are there is a time to play and a time to go from A to B.
‘Children learn confidence and independence at a young age.’
Some social media users rushed to Musk’s defense, claiming that X ‘had plenty of protecting eyes on him and Elon knows that’
The fresh wave of criticism comes just days after Errol Musk claimed Elon’s first son Nevada spent ‘too much time’ in the care of nannies before his death.
‘The first child was too much with nannies and died in the care of a nanny,’ Errol said on South African podcast Wide Awake.
Nevada, who died at just ten weeks old in 2002, was Musk’s first child with his wife Justine.
Errol said: ‘If Elon hears this he’s gonna shoot me or something, but anyway, that’s what I think.’
‘They were too rich, [had] too many nannies… then he had five children with the same woman – five sons all brought up, each one had its own nanny. You following me?
‘When they got divorced, the nannies were six on this side and six on that side. So it was a really weird situation.’
Errol also alleged that Musk ‘never spent time with his kids.’
The wave of online criticism comes just days after the tech titan’s own father Errol Musk delivered a brutal opinion of his son’s parenting skills and blamed Elon for the death of his first son Nevada, who tragically passed away at ten months old
Elon Musk and his first wife Canadian Justine Wilson had their first son, Nevada, in 2002
Musk and Justine were married from 2000 to 2008. After Nevada’s death, the couple went on to have twin sons, Xavier and Griffin. Xavier has since transitioned to become Vivian and now identifies as female.
In 2006, they welcomed triplets Kai, Saxon and Damian.
He has since had three children – X Æ A-12, Exa Dark Sideræl, Techno Mechanicus – with former partner Grimes, and another three children – Strider, Azure and a third baby whose name is not known- with Shivon Zillis.
Both he and Justine have spoken of the acute grief they felt when Nevada died.
‘My firstborn child died in my arms. I felt his last heartbeat. I have no mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics or fame,’ he said in a tweet aimed at Sandy Hook hoax conspiracy theorists.
Justine recalled the tragedy in an essay for Marie Claire.
‘By the time eBay bought PayPal in 2002, we had moved to Los Angeles and had our first child, a boy named Nevada Alexander. The sale of PayPal vaulted Elon’s net worth to well over $100 million.
‘The same week, Nevada went down for a nap, placed on his back as always, and stopped breathing. He was 10 weeks old, the age when male infants are most susceptible to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).
Musk has fathered 12 children with three women. He shares five with his ex-wife Justine Musk, three with Canadian singer Grimes and three with Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis. MAGA influencer Ashley St Clair recently claimed that she secretly gave birth to Musk’s 13th child
‘By the time the paramedics resuscitated him, he had been deprived of oxygen for so long that he was brain-dead.
‘He spent three days on life support in a hospital in Orange County before we made the decision to take him off it.
‘I held him in my arms when he died.’
There appears to be no love lost between the billionaire and his father.
In a 2017 interview, Elon described his father as a ‘terrible human being’.
‘He was such a terrible human being. You have no idea… my dad will have a carefully thought-out plan of evil. He will plan evil.
‘My dad was not physically violent with me. He was only physically violent when I was very young.’
Errol infamously married his own stepdaughter, Jana Bezuidenhout, in the 1990s. They had two children together.
Elon Musk with his adorable son X in the Oval Office on February 11, 2025
Musk and Shivon Zilis brought their three-year-old twins Strider and Azure along with X to a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi this week
Elon Musk has fathered 12 children with three women. He shares five with his ex-wife Justine Musk, three with Canadian singer Grimes and three with Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis. MAGA influencer Ashley St Clair recently claimed that she secretly gave birth to Musk’s 13th child.
He has spoken jokingly of his desire to repopulate the world by fathering as many children as he can.
Some of the kids have made their Washington DC debuts; toddlers Strider and Azure joined older brother X and their famous father for a meeting with the Indian Prime Minister yesterday.
X went viral after an adorable appearance in the Oval Office earlier this week.
His mother, Grimes, was displeased that he’d been trotted out in front of the world’s press.
