Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, announced on Twitter that he had separated from his wife, British actress Talulah Riley.
“@rileytalulah It was an amazing four years. I will love you forever. You will make someone very happy one day,” Musk wrote.
Musk elaborated on their relationship in a recent interview:
“We took some time apart for several months to see if absence makes the heart grow fonder, and unfortunately it did not,” Musk said. “I still love her, but I’m not in love with her. And I can’t really give her what she wants. I think it would be extremely unwise for me to jump into a third marriage without spending considerable time figuring out if the third one will work–it was never my intention to have a short marriage. Essentially I’d want to be super sure before getting married again, but I certainly would love to be in a relationship. For sure.”
Musk and Riley were married for four years and she is 13 years younger than him. More from a recent interview with Musk about the relationship:
“I think the foundation of love is virtue,” he said, noting such qualities as hard work, sacrifice and excellence. “To the degree that someone has the sort of things that you intrinsically feel are virtuous then your love will increase. It’s the idea that what you as an individual truly perceive as virtue–not what others want you to perceive or what you think society wants you to perceive but what you really perceive as virtue–is the essential part of the person. What lies within their heart.”