Elon Musk and Grimes reveal mysterious baby name, sparking theories online

Elon Musk announced the birth of his baby boy with singer Grimes on Twitter Monday and fans clamored for details. Musk, who was already a father of five, shared a simple photo of himself with his newborn son. When a fan asked what the baby's name was, the billionaire entrepreneur gave a mysterious answer: X Æ A-12 Musk.

Yes, Musk tweeted to a fan that his and Grimes' son was named X Æ A-12 Musk. How is that name pronounced? No one could know for sure, but some fans did post interesting theories online.

X Æ A-12 Musk

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 5, 2020

One of the most popular theories is that the baby's name is X Ash Archangel. How does that translate to X Æ A-12? Æ is a ligature meaning Ash, one Twitter user pointed out. A-12 could refer to Lockheed A-12 aircraft – codename: Archangel. 

X Ash Archangel? pic.twitter.com/cRhNptBiU7

— Viv 🐉 (@flcnhvy) May 5, 2020

Another Twitter user theorized the name could be Jão. "X = 10 = J Æ = ã A - 12 (count backwards) = O," the Twitter user explained.

Someone else used a different decoding method to figure out what X Æ A-12 truly meant. "X = 10 in Roman numerals, 10 is an angel number representing god and his government on the earth, 'god said' appears 10 times in Genesis I. Grimes has a song titled Genesis. Maybe X means Genesis," Tierney Mannion tweeted. 

The couple didn't leave fans in the dark for too long – kind of. Grimes, whose real name is Claire Elise Boucher, tweeted an explanation that still left some people scratching their heads. "X, the unknown variable," she wrote. "Æ, my elven spelling of Ai (love &/or Artificial intelligence)."

"A-12 = precursor to SR-17 (our favorite aircraft). No weapons, no defenses, just speed. Great in battle, but non-violent + (A=Archangel, my favorite song) ( metal rat)," her tweet continued.

Still, it is unclear how to pronounce this series of symbols and letters that somehow constitutes a baby name. "Thanks this didn't help at all," one person replied to Grimes' explanation on Twitter.

Symbolic names are nothing new for the 32-year-old singer. In a 2019 Culture Magazine profile of Grimes, it was revealed that the singer wanted to go by "c," which is "the symbol for the speed of light and the name she legally adopted last year because Claire has been 'plaguing' her." 

The 48-year-old Musk is a father to other five other sons – a set of twins, Griffin and Xavier and a set of triplets, Damian, Saxon and Kai, conceived via in vitro fertilization with his first wife Justine Wilson. 

In addition to the first photo Musk shared of X Æ A-12, he also shared a photo of the baby with a filter that gave him face tattoos. It seems like the couple is already having a ton of fun with this kid. 

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Caitlin O'Kane

Caitlin O'Kane is a digital content producer covering trending stories for CBS News and its good news brand, The Uplift.

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