Elon Musk has made so many headlines that it’s easy to forget the buzzy headlines that were written when he and singer Grimes gave their son, born in 2020, a truly unique name. The boy now goes by X, the same letter as the name Musk gave to Twitter and uses in SpaceX. But his full name is more complicated: X Æ A-12.
The boy is 5 now, but back when he was an infant, his dad appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast and confirmed the name’s pronunciation.
“How do you say the name?” Rogan asked. “Is it a placeholder?”
Apparently not. Musk said at the time that the name is pronounced “X Ash A Twelve.” (“Æ” is a character used in some languages, including Danish and Norwegian. It’s often pronounced “ash,” but some people pronounce each letter, saying “A E.”)
“First of all, my partner’s the one that mostly came up with the name,” Musk said of Grimes. “I mean it’s just X, the letter X, and the ‘Æ’ is pronounced, ‘Ash,’ and then, A-12 is my contribution.” He went on to say that A-12 stood for “Archangel 12, the precursor to the SR-71, coolest plane ever.”
Musk has 14 children total, with four different women, according to People. His other children with Grimes are a daughter, Exa Dark Sideræl, age 2, and a son, Tau Techno Mechanicus, age 3.
In February, before President Donald Trump and Musk had their much-publicized falling-out, X showed up with his father in the Oval Office, where the president called the toddler a “high IQ individual.”
But the boy’s mom was not pleased.
“He should not be in public like this,” X’s mother, singer Grimes posted, according to The Standard. “I did not see this, thank u for alerting me. But I’m glad he was polite. Sigh.”
Elon Musk in 2020 with then-newborn X.
Elon Musk/TwitterHear Elon Musk pronounce X’s full name
If you want to hear Musk pronounce X’s full name, you don’t have to fast-forward through much of the video. Rogan asks him to pronounce it just 37 seconds into the 2020 podcast.
Grimes tweeted a more detailed explanation of why the various parts of the name were chosen in 2020. She called X “the unknown variable,” and said that Æ was “my elven spelling of Ai,” which she explained as “love and/or artificial intelligence.”
As for the A-12, she called the plane “our favorite aircraft,” going on to tout its “no weapons, no defenses, just speed. Great in battle, but non-violent.” Grimes also noted that the A in A-12 stood for “Archangel,” which she said was “my favorite song.” She didn’t specify which song — numer