On September 16, Beijing time, Google co-founder Sergey Brin quietly completed the divorce proceedings with his wife Nicole Shanahan in May this year. According to previous media reports, the trigger for the couple's divorce was an extramarital affair between Brin's long-time friend Elon Musk and Shanahan.


Musk accused of meddling in Brin's marriage

Court records obtained by foreign media show that a judge approved the divorce agreement on May 26 this year. According to the divorce agreement, Shanahan and Breen will share legal and physical custody of their 4-year-old daughter. As part of the prenuptial agreement, issues including spousal support, attorney fees, and property division will be resolved through confidential arbitration. The couple also agreed to pay "non-directive" child support, according to the divorce agreement, but the exact amount was kept confidential.

Shanahan is an attorney and founder of the nonprofit Bia-Echo Foundation. She did not contest the divorce but asked the court to award her spousal support, court documents show. Breen has always wanted to keep the divorce proceedings private. Court records show that his attorneys made multiple requests to seal the divorce documents, citing extensive media coverage of Brin's previous relationships.

Brin and Shanahan met at a yoga retreat in 2015. On November 11, 2018, the two got married. Their daughter was born about two weeks later. In January 2022, Brin submitted a divorce application to the court on the grounds that after three years of marriage, the two had "irreconcilable differences." However, the media quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that the divorce was due to an extramarital affair between Musk and Shanahan sometime in December 2021. Brin pointed out in the divorce application that the two began to separate on December 15, 2021. But Shanahan said the timing of the separation is "to be determined."

Musk responded on Twitter that reports of his extramarital affair were "complete nonsense.""Sergey and I are friends and we attended a party together last night. I've only seen Nicole twice in three years, and that was in the presence of a lot of people. Nothing romantic ever happened," he wrote on July 24, 2022. Shanahan also denied having an extramarital affair with Musk during the interview, calling the rumor "completely untrue."

As of press time, attorneys for Breen and Shanahan had not commented.