Depending on your temperament, there’s a right way and a wrong way to get divorced.
And then there’s the Canadian way.
Justine Musk, a 36-year-old Peterborough native, is in the midst of splitting from her husband Elon Musk, the CEO of electric car company Tesla Motors and a co-founder of PayPal.
The Musks share five sons. They both continue to live in California and share custody. They met while Elon Musk, born to a Canadian mother in South Africa, attended Queen’s University in Kingston. She writes fantasy novels.
Justine Musk’s favourite literary topic at the moment is her own split. A series of remarkably open and fairly even-handed blog postings have made Musk the model ex-wife – at least as far as ex-husbands are concerned. Websites like Gawker have been following the progression of the Musk implosion for months.
The story began unfolding in September 2008, when Musk wrote, “I am getting divorced. We had a good run. We married young, took it as far as we could and now it is over.”
Since then, she has intermittently come back to the divorce – how she’s feeling, how the legal action is progressing. Mostly, how she’s feeling.
Recently, as the final divorce nears and the legal action hots up, she’s moved from the general to the specific.
Here’s her post from May 8th:
“For those who want to know the extent of my golddigging (emphasis in the original), this is what I asked for, from my ex-husband and the father of my five children Elon Musk, who is a billionaire and likely to become one of the wealthiest men on the planet.
The house
alimony and child support
6 million cash
10 per cent of his stock in Tesla
5 per cent of his stock in (ed: space transport company) SpaceX (and he retains all voting rights)
and a Tesla Roadster (I really, really want one. . . )”
That sounds pretty reasonable, right? Well, you haven’t read anything yet.
Last month, Musk blogged her thoughts on her soon-to-be ex’s fiancée, 23-year-old British starlet, Talulah Riley.
The tone of the posting was measured — negative, without verging into hostile. On Riley herself: “I have nothing against Talulah. I wish her the best, and my kids seem to like her.”
Riley and Musk first met in the spring of 2009. They agreed to have breakfast together before Riley attended one of Musk’s children’s birthday party.
“Talulah sent an email introducing herself and suggested we meet beforehand, rather than amid the chaos of a children’s birthday party, which I appreciated.”
Afterward, she emailed Riley: “I would rather live out the French-movie version of events (the ex-wife and new fiancée become friends and various philosophies are pondered) than the American version (one is ‘good’ and one is psycho, there’s a big catfight sequence and someone gets thrown off a balcony) — the latter of which seems vastly overrated.
“(Riley) responded, Let’s do as the French do.”
French, or Canadian, depending on how you were raised.
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