Elon Musk’s college girlfriend auctions billionaire memorabilia

Elon Musk denies having an affair with Nicole Shanahan 0:44 (CNN) — Holding on to an ex’s stuff can pay off later, at least if your ex happens to be the richest man in the world. The ex-girlfriend of tech entrepreneur Elon Musk is putting up for auction a cache of photos and memorabilia from his relationship with the billionaire. Jennifer Gwynne, Musk’s college girlfriend, is selling the memorabilia through Boston-based RR Auction. A photo of Elon Musk having a drink with Jennifer Gwynne in 1995 is one of several memorabilia from the tech billionaire’s college relationship to be auctioned. Gwynne and Musk began dating in 1994 when they were both working as resident advisors at a college dorm, according to a press release RR Auction shared with CNN. Shortly after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Musk began a doctoral program at Stanford, but dropped out to launch his first startup, Zip2. The lot includes 18 innocent photos of the businessman when he was a baby-faced economics student at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as several other memorabilia from Musk and Gwynne’s time together. The photos show the billionaire looking like a normal college student before his meteoric rise to success: lounging in a dorm room, hanging out with his fellow resident advisors and hugging his girlfriend. The item with the highest current bid is a signed birthday card, followed by a necklace given to Gwynne for her birthday. “Happy birthday, Jennifer (aka Boo-Boo), love, Elon,” the note reads. As of Sunday morning, the highest bid was nearly $7,000. The card is expected to sell for more than $10,000, according to RR. The gold necklace features an emerald from the Zambian emerald mine owned by Musk’s father, Errol, a wealthy South African real estate developer and engineer. “When we went to visit Elon’s mother in Toronto over Christmas break in 1994, Elon gave me both the little ‘love, love, love’ note and the necklace,” Gwynne said in the RR statement. “His mother had several of these necklaces in a case in her bedroom, and Elon told me they were from his father’s emerald mine in South Africa. He took one out of the case. And because he hadn’t given her anything for Christmas (and I felt really guilty about it), he said we would consider the necklace as an early birthday present for me.” Meet the name of Elon Musk and Grimes’ second daughter 0:56 “I wore the necklace for several years on and off, but most of the time it’s been sitting in my jewelry box for the last ten years (always reminding me of Elon of course )”. The necklace also comes with two photos, one of Musk and Gwynne with Musk’s mother, model Maye Musk, and another of Musk and Gwynne at a New Year’s Eve ceremony in 1995. Big Tesla fans can bid for a piece of Musk memorabilia until Wednesday, when the auction closes.