Elon Musk’s former partner Grimes wants custody of their three children, but apparently, serving Musk with custody paperwork is no easy feat. So far, she’s hired four process servers who have attempted to serve Musk in at least 12 different locations, Business Insider reports. As of last Thursday, he still hadn’t responded to her lawsuit.
California family lawyer Christopher Melcher told Business Insider that Grimes’s legal team had “made more than reasonable efforts,” as three attempts to serve someone is usually considered sufficient under California law. He also added that leaving the papers at someone’s house or business is also acceptable, especially if that person is a wealthy public figure who isn’t easy to reach directly.
“None of these security guards were going to let the process server in,” he said. “They could’ve come 100 times.”
While Grimes’ custody suit against Musk is well-known, it was actually Elon himself who started the legal battle, claiming that she moved to California “in an apparent attempt to circumvent jurisdiction” of Texas courts. According to Melcher, Musk has until November 29 to formally respond to the lawsuit and will likely argue that the custody case should be handled by Texas courts. He also told Business Insider that it will likely take a while for the jurisdictional issue to be worked out, so you shouldn’t expect this case to be resolved anytime soon.
Musk’s relationship with Grimes has long been both messy and complicated. They first got together back in 2018 but broke up in 2021 after their first child was born. They still lived together for a while in Austin, Texas to raise X Æ A-Xii and later had two more children, the first in 2021 and the second in 2022. At some point, things took a turn for the worse, and in September, Grimes tweeted at Musk biographer Walter Isaacson, “Tell Elon to let me see my son or plz respond to my lawyer.”
Currently, Musk has fathered 11 children that we know of.