Grimes is many things: a visionary artist, a modern philosopher, a mother of two (more on that later), a supportive partner to a billionaire iconoclast, a “capitalist Democrat” (her words), and a proud weeb. But at least she’s not boring.
The 33-year-old singer graces the April cover of Vanity Fair and chief among the seismic details in the piece is the surprise reveal of her second child, a daughter, with Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk. The baby, Exa Dark Sideræl Musk (also known by the nicknames “Y” and “Sailor Mars”), was born via surrogate, according to Vanity Fair. The couple welcomed a son, X Æ A-12, pronounced “X A.I. Archangel” or “X” for short, in March 2020 — which one might see as prophetic timing.
Perhaps even more surreal than a celebrity couple with a secret baby is the way in which writer Devin Gordon discovered little Y’s existence.
Grimes says she and Elon Musk have changed their baby’s name
While discussing the “Shinigami Eyes” singer’s upcoming album Book 1, Gordon heard “what sounds vaguely like a lone cry from an infant upstairs.” A few moments later, he heard even more wailing: “This time it’s multiple cries, and it’s unmistakable. I’ve got two kids. That’s a baby. And I can tell by the frozen look on my host’s face that she heard it too. So I brace myself to ask the strangest question of my career: Do you have another baby in your life, Grimes?”
The answer was, of course, yes. But can you blame Grimes for wanting to keep Y’s birth a secret?
“Whatever is going on with family stuff, I just feel like kids need to stay out of it, and [first Musk baby] X is just out there,” Grimes said. “I mean, I think E is really seeing him as a protégé and bringing him to everything and stuff… X is out there. His situation is like that.”
And Y, for now, is all hers. “The best situation here,” she revealed later in the piece, “is me training the girl and [Musk] training the boy.” Training for what? Life on Earth as celebrity children? Life on Mars alongside their father?
The way she sees it, X is more than Musk’s protégé. More than the son of the wealthiest man in the world — Musk is valued at over 200 million, according to Forbes — X himself is the Chosen One in his mother’s eyes, mirroring the destiny of one of her favorite sci-fi heroes: Dune‘s Paul Atreides.
“I just know X is going to have to go through all this really fucked-up shit that sort of mirrors Paul-type stuff,” she said.
Speaking of Mars, Musk confirmed that the plan is to depart for the red planet within the next 10 years. Grimes may or may not follow him, eventually. She described the SpaceX founder’s mission not as megalomania but rather “for the benefit of humanity, and it’s dangerous and it’s expensive, and people are like, ‘He’s hoarding money!’ No, he’s spending everything on R&D… Bro might say a lot of stupid shit, but he does the right thing.”
Bro might say a lot of stupid shit, but he does the right thing.
Grimes also defended her on-again-off-again boyfriend — “we’re very fluid,” she said — against critics who view him and his ideas as needlessly excessive. “Bro does not live like a billionaire,” she told Vanity Fair. “Bro lives at times below the poverty line. To the point where I was like, can we not live in a very insecure $40,000 house? Where the neighbors, like, film us, and there’s no security, and I’m eating peanut butter for eight days in a row?”
This doesn’t mean Grimes — who once famously trolled the paparazzi by reading Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’s Communist Manifesto dressed as a mage following a brief split from Musk — has completely abandoned her principles. She’s just…changed. Every simulation evolves over time. Still, she understands why her fans feel betrayed by her choices.
“I mean, when people say I’m a class traitor that is not…an inaccurate description,” she said. “I was deeply from the far left and I converted to being essentially a capitalist Democrat. A lot of people are understandably upset.”
But is Grimes is still Grimes. She loves art, anime, and futurism. And for better or for worse, this thing she has with Musk is the “best it’s ever been.”
