Elon Musk says he's upping childcare benefits at Tesla, SpaceX and his other companies

• Elon Musk said his companies will soon "significantly" expand their childcare benefits.
• He also said his foundation will make direct donations to families to support children.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said that he plans to significantly increase the childcare benefits at his companies while donating directly to families via his foundation.

The billionaire father of nine was responding to a Twitter thread involving singer Nick Cannon, who has his own growing list of offspring, in which Musk was asked for advice to those who don't have children "for cost reasons."

—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 8, 2022

Tesla currently offers 16 weeks of parental leave and up to $40,000 in reimbursement for fertility and family planning treatments.

Less is disclosed publicly about SpaceX, which is a privately held firm, but tips to the careers site Fairy God Boss suggest the company provides ten weeks of paid maternity leave and ten weeks of unpaid leave. It does not specify numbers for paternity leave.

Musk also founded a secretive private school, Ad Astra, for his own children and a handful of others which was initially run in a conference room at SpaceX's Los Angeles offices.

The news follows the revelation by Insider that Musk fathered previously unknown twins with Shivon Zilis, an executive at Neuralink, in November. Musk seemed to confirm the news with a tweet Thursday, saying: "Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis."