Ashley St. Clair Apologized. Elon Musk Threatened to Take Her Kid
There Are No Girls on the Internet
iHeartPodcasts
4.1 • 905 Ratings
🗓️ 20 January 2026
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Right-wing influencer Ashley St. Clair has a long history of transphobic behavior, including authoring a children’s book promoting those views. When she recently expressed regret for that past behavior, Elon Musk threatened to petition for sole custody of the child they share.
Parker Molloy — writer and editor of the popular newsletter The Present Age — joins me to grapple with St. Clair’s apology, what accountability can look like in the public eye, and what happens when someone attempts to step off the outrage machine that once rewarded them.
Read Parker’s piece: A Conservative Influencer Apologized for Her Anti-Trans Past. Elon Musk Is Trying to Take Her Kid
https://www.readtpa.com/p/a-conservative-influencer-apologized
Parker previously worked at Media Matters. You can listen to our deep dive into Elon Musk’s legal attacks on the organization here:
https://omny.fm/shows/there-are-no-girls-on-the-internet/elon-musk-boosts-antisemitic-tweet-and-advertisers
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an IHeart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:08.1 | There are No Girls on the Internet as a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. |
| 0:16.3 | I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. |
| 0:22.3 | Ashley St. Clair is a right-wing influencer. |
| 0:25.4 | She even wrote a kid's book called Elephants Are Not Birds, |
| 0:28.9 | which is a pretty thinly veiled anti-trans metaphor. |
| 0:33.0 | In 2024, Ashley had a baby with Elon Musk, |
| 0:36.7 | a fact that she kept private for nearly a year. |
| 0:40.0 | Musk offered her $15 million plus $100,000 per month in child support |
| 0:46.3 | in exchange for signing an NDA and never revealing his paternity. |
| 0:51.9 | She refused, saying that she didn't want her son to feel like a secret. |
| 0:56.5 | What followed, according to Ashley, was retaliation, financially, publicly, and technologically. |
| 1:03.9 | Musk's company, X, allowed his AI chatbot, Grok, to generate sexualized images of her, |
| 1:13.4 | including depictions based on photos for when Ashley was a minor. After she complained, her account was demonetized and stripped of premium |
| 1:19.4 | features. Last week, Ashley filed a lawsuit against X. And now, Elon Musk is saying that he plans |
| 1:27.2 | to seek sole custody of their son, who Ashley says |
| 1:30.6 | he's only ever met a handful of times. Now, Musk is citing Ashley's regret over her past |
| 1:36.7 | transphobic behavior as evidence that she intends to transition their one-year-old child, |
| 1:43.1 | even though she never said any such thing. |
| 1:46.0 | Now, this episode is not just about Ashley St. Clair. It's about what happens when the same |
| 1:51.4 | outrage machine that rewards cruelty turns on one of its own, and what it means when someone |
... |
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