In 2008, the chap­ter titled “Divorce” fol­lows Jus­tine as she nav­i­gates through the com­plex­i­ties of her mar­riage with Elon Musk, post the trag­ic death of their son Neva­da. The cou­ple’s attempt to find solace through expand­ing their fam­i­ly, result­ing in twins Grif­fin and Xavier, fol­lowed by triplets Kai, Sax­on, and Dami­an, quick­ly tran­si­tions into a tale of esca­lat­ing domes­tic ten­sion amidst their opu­lent lifestyle shift from a cramped Sil­i­con Val­ley apart­ment to a sprawl­ing man­sion in Bel Air.

Jus­tine reflects on moments of gen­uine con­nec­tion and con­tent­ment with Musk, con­trast­ing these mem­o­ries with the stark real­i­ty of their fre­quent, intense argu­ments that esca­lat­ed to per­son­al insults. These dis­putes mir­rored Musk’s com­bat­ive nature, fur­ther high­light­ed by Justine’s insight into Elon’s upbring­ing and psy­cho­log­i­cal make­up, direct­ly link­ing his con­fronta­tion­al demeanor to his father’s influ­ence and his own neu­ro­log­i­cal con­di­tion­ing.

The mar­riage’s strain is exac­er­bat­ed by Musk’s social awk­ward­ness, jux­ta­posed with their par­tic­i­pa­tion in elite social cir­cles, and his work-induced emo­tion­al detach­ment dur­ing the simul­ta­ne­ous crises at SpaceX and Tes­la. Justine’s ris­ing dis­con­tent is under­scored by Musk’s lack of empa­thy, a trait she des­per­ate­ly sought from him, par­tic­u­lar­ly after their shared loss and dur­ing Elon’s pro­fes­sion­al tur­bu­lence, which he often kept from her. Despite Musk’s acknowl­edg­ment of the impor­tance of empa­thy, his ratio­nal­iza­tion of emo­tion­al detach­ment as a busi­ness asset echoes through­out their dete­ri­o­rat­ing rela­tion­ship.

Justine’s pur­suit of psy­chother­a­py to nav­i­gate her grief and under­stand Elon bet­ter stark­ly con­trasts with Musk’s dis­missal of ther­a­py, tied back to his chal­leng­ing child­hood and emo­tion­al ret­i­cence, fur­ther deep­en­ing their emo­tion­al divide. Their mar­riage’s crit­i­cal point arrives post Justine’s car acci­dent, when her demand for a more engaged and rec­i­p­ro­cal part­ner­ship leads to a brief coun­sel­ing attempt, ulti­mate­ly cul­mi­nat­ing in their divorce. The chap­ter poignant­ly clos­es with con­trast­ing nar­ra­tives of the sep­a­ra­tion’s ini­ti­a­tion, reflect­ing the com­plex­i­ty and emo­tion­al weight of their mar­i­tal break­down.