NY Times Dives Into Personal Life of RFK Jr.’s Running Mate — Including Past Drug Use and Musk Affair

LEFT: Nicole Shanahan (AP Photo/Eric Gay) RIGHT: Elon Musk (Sthanlee B. Mirador/Sipa USA)

A New York Times deep dive into Nicole Shanahan, whom independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. named as his running mate last month, delves into her reputation as a partier and alleged affair with controversial billionaire Elon Musk.

Shanahan owes her status as a billionaire to her marriage to and divorce from Google founder Sergey Brin, from whom she separated after having “a sexual encounter with Elon Musk in 2021,” according to the Times.

The newspaper cited three anonymous sources to back up its account of Shanahan’s fling with Musk, which Shanahan denies. Musk and Brin did not return requests for comment.

Shanahan’s alleged affair with Musk would not be her first such indiscretion, per the Gray Lady, which reports that Shanahan had an affair with Brin just weeks before she married her first husband, Jeremy Kranz. Kranz filed for an annulment of his marriage to Shanahan just a few weeks after they made it official, but later agreed to go through with a divorce at Shanahan’s request.

During her subsequent marriage to Brin, the Times claims that “Ms. Shanahan partied with Silicon Valley’s elite and used recreational drugs including cocaine, ketamine and psychedelic mushrooms.”

Shanahan’s drug use and partying allegedly increased in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. From the report:

Ms. Shanahan began going out more without Mr. Brin, according to five people and documents viewed by The Times. At a party in early 2021 in Miami, Ms. Shanahan was so intoxicated by drugs and alcohol that she required an IV infusion, the documents show.

That fall, Ms. Shanahan threw a Studio 54-themed birthday party for herself at a New York club. Mr. Musk, a longtime friend of Mr. Brin’s, attended. In December 2021, Ms. Shanahan saw Mr. Musk again at a private party in Miami that his brother, Kimbal Musk, was hosting in connection with the Art Basel festival.

At that party, Elon Musk and Ms. Shanahan took ketamine, a popular party drug that is legal with a prescription, and disappeared together for several hours, according to four people briefed on the event and documents related to it. Ms. Shanahan later told Mr. Brin that she had had sex with Mr. Musk, three of the people said. She also relayed the details to friends, family and advisers.

Brin and Shanahan separated two weeks after the party in question.