Google co-founder divorced wife over her alleged affair with Elon Musk

Google's co-founder Sergey Brin has quietly finalised his divorce from his wife Nicole Shanahan after allegations that she had an affair with billionaire Elon Musk.

As per court documents, the couple's divorce was confirmed on May 26. They will now split legal and physical custody of their 4-year-old daughter, NDTV reports on Saturday.

Though Ms Shanahan did not contest the divorce, she asked the court to award her spousal support, the court papers said. They settled other issues including lawyer fees and division of assets in confidential arbitration.

Notably, Sergey Brin and Nicole Shanahan started dating in 2015, the same year Mr Brin finalised his divorce from his first wife, Anne Wojcicki, and eventually got married to Nicole Shanahan in 2018.

However, they split in 2021 and started living separately, after which Mr. Brin filed for divorce in 2022, citing ‘irreconcilable difference’.

He filed for divorce about a month after his wife allegedly had a brief affair with Elon Musk, with whom he had been friends for years. However, both Mr Musk and Ms Shanahan denied their alleged affair.

''Sergey and I are friends and were at a party together last night. I've only seen Nicole twice in three years, both times with many other people around. Nothing romantic,’’ Musk wrote on X, on July 25, 2022.

Meanwhile, Ms Shanahan called the scandal ''utterly debilitating''. She insisted that she was never even more than friends with Mr Musk.

The 50-year-old Google co-founder is the ninth richest person in the world with a net worth of $118 billion. Ms Shanahan, 34, is a California-based attorney and the founder and president of Bia-Echo Foundation.