Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Google co-founder Sergey Brin's estranged wife Nicole Shanahan should sue the Wall Street Journal for reporting they had an affair.
The WSJ wrote earlier this week that the two had a brief relationship at the end of 2021, shortly after Musk had broken up with music artist Grimes.
That ended with Musk dropping to one knee at a party earlier this year and begging Brin for forgiveness, the paper reported.
The alleged relationship was quickly denied by the controversial billionaire, who described it as "total BS".
"Sergey and I are friends and were at a party together last night," he tweeted.
"I've only seen Nicole twice in three years, both times with many other people around. Nothing romantic."
Bryan Freedman, Shanahan's attorney, backed Musk's denial.
"Make no mistake, any suggestion that Nicole had an affair with Elon Musk is not only an outright lie but also defamatory," he said in a statement.
However, the Wall Street Journal is standing by their story, saying in a statement it was "confident in our sourcing and we stand by our reporting".
Musk replied to a tweet about the statements saying Shanahan should be taking legal action.
"As a 'public person', the standard to win a defamation lawsuit against a news org is almost impossible. They could say I’m Satan and the 'source' is their psychic!" Musk tweeted.
"Nicole is not a public person, so could win. I hope she sues them.
"Moreover, I talked to Sergey yesterday and he says neither he nor anyone he knows has talked to WSJ," he concluded.
Musk is currently facing his own legal difficulties. He's being sued by Twitter to complete his US$44 billion takeover of the social media platform.
A trial has been agreed to in October at which Musk's attempts to pull out of the deal will be examined. Twitter maintains it expects the deal to be concluded successfully.
It was also revealed earlier this month that Musk had twins with Shivon Zilis, an executive at his Neuralink company, in November 2021, shortly before the alleged affair with Shanahan took place.
