Elon Musk and Grimes Chose Quite a Unique Name for Their Baby Boy

Grant Rindner
·4 min read
Photo credit: Theo Wargo - Getty Images
Photo credit: Theo Wargo - Getty Images

From Oprah Magazine

  • Grimes and Elon Musk have given birth to their first child, apparently named X Æ A-12 Musk.

  • Their relationship became public in May 2018 and has been the subject of heavy media scrutiny.

  • Twitter users have rushed to speculate about the unique name's meaning and pronunciation.

Musician Grimes, 32, and controversial tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, 48, have welcomed their first child, a baby boy apparently named X Æ A-12 Musk. The child was born the evening of May 4 and is Grimes' first and Musk's sixth.

The pair began dating in May 2018 and made headlines for appearing at the Met Gala together. Grimes hinted strongly that she was pregnant in January 2020, later officially confirming the news. The pair has been the subject of heavy media scrutiny, as Grimes has spoken online about some of Musk's business decisions, including donating to Republican political groups.

In January, Grimes posted a lengthy Instagram caption about the difficulties of her pregnancy and the challenge of continuing to work on music at the time. She released her fifth studio album, Miss Anthropocene, to critical acclaim in February.

View this post on Instagram

Fake or real? Haha. Wow I’m starting to feel bad haha... how do y’all cope with working and having a baby?? I’m sorry I haven’t been promoting my album properly or on social media more. This whole thing has been a bit of an ordeal. Had some complications early on, a decent second trimester but starting to hurt everywhere at 25 wksz. What were yalls experience w this stuff like? I feel like I was woefully ill prepared cuz I dunno if pregnancy is as visible or discussed as it should be. I just didn’t rly understand what I was getting into. It’s been good too, but it makes working a lot harder. Good at writing and having lots of wild ideas tho, but anything physical is hard. Im also way more emo and less capable of bravery in the face of haters online and stuff haha. But my albums out in a sec so I prob need to get back on here. Don’t mind my emo energy, but curious what other ppls experience was like 🤍🐁🍼 I didn’t even google it, I was just like sure y not hahaha smh

A post shared by ꧁ ༒ Gℜiꪔ⃕es ༒꧂ (@grimes) on Jan 31, 2020 at 1:58pm PST

While Grimes has spoken at length about the challenges of pregnancy, Musk's comments about the baby have been more lighthearted. He shared a photo of the infant with several superimposed face tattoos on Twitter.

Musk also posted an unaltered image as well and wrote on Twitter, "Mom & baby all good."

Per Business Insider, Twitter users are speculating about the unorthodox name's meaning and pronunciation. One guess, that it's "X Ash Archangel" and a reference to the Lockheed A-12 CIA aircraft, was liked by Musk, leading many to believe that's correct. Much of Musk's work has focused on transportation, and he's talked about creating electric planes, which could explain the aviation connection.

A Twitter user took the A-12 aircraft connection even deeper, reasoning that the baby's name is actually Xavier. Based on the pronunciations of "X" and "Æ," as well as the fact that the A-12 was chosen by the CIA over a design from aircraft manufacturer Convair.

Another theory posits that the name is biblical, while yet another denizen of Twitter noted that the X is 10 in Roman numerals and wrote, "10 is an angel number representing God and his government on the earth, ‘God said’ appears 10 times in [The Book of] Genesis. Grimes has a song titled 'Genesis.' Maybe 'X' means Genesis."

With the two celebrities' penchant for social media, it's likely the meaning of X Æ A-12 won't stay a mystery for too long.

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