Grimes and Elon Musk were romantically involved on and off from 2018 until 2022 and share three children: X Æ A-Xii, Exa Dark Sideræl and Techno Mechanicus. They are no longer publicly known to be a couple, and their relationship in recent years has centered largely on co-parenting, privacy disagreements and a custody dispute whose final terms remain sealed.
Their partnership attracted unusual attention because it connected two very different public worlds. Grimes, whose real name is Claire Boucher, built her career through experimental electronic and pop music, while Musk became one of the world’s most prominent technology entrepreneurs through companies including Tesla and SpaceX. What started as an online connection eventually became a complicated family relationship that has continued long after their romantic breakup.
Who Are Grimes and Elon Musk?
Grimes is a Canadian musician, producer and visual artist known for experimental electronic music and albums including Visions, Art Angels and Miss Anthropocene. Her music often explores technology, artificial intelligence, science fiction and futuristic themes.
Elon Musk is an entrepreneur associated with companies including SpaceX and Tesla and the owner of the social platform X. Those shared interests in technology and futuristic ideas became part of the public story surrounding his relationship with Grimes.
The pairing drew attention partly because neither person fit neatly into the other’s professional world. Grimes came from independent and experimental music, while Musk was already a globally recognized business figure.
How Did Grimes and Elon Musk Meet?
Grimes and Elon Musk began communicating online in 2018 after discovering that they had independently made similar jokes involving artificial intelligence and the philosophical thought experiment known as Roko’s Basilisk.
Contemporary reporting linked their early conversations to Musk attempting to make a wordplay joke involving “Rococo Basilisk.” Grimes had apparently made a similar joke years earlier through her artistic work.
Their relationship became public in May 2018 when they attended the Met Gala together. Photographs of Musk and Grimes arriving together effectively confirmed that they were dating.
The unusual way they reportedly connected became a recurring theme in coverage of their relationship. Both had publicly expressed strong interests in artificial intelligence, space, technology and questions about humanity’s future.
Grimes and Elon Musk Relationship Timeline
| Year | What Happened |
|---|---|
| 2018 | Grimes and Musk began dating and appeared together at the Met Gala |
| 2020 | Their first child, X Æ A-Xii, was born |
| 2021 | Musk described the couple as “semi-separated” |
| December 2021 | Their daughter, Exa Dark Sideræl, was born via surrogate |
| March 2022 | Grimes said they had broken up again |
| June 2022 | Their third child, Techno Mechanicus, was reportedly born |
| September 2023 | Their third child’s existence became public |
| 2023 | Legal disputes concerning parental rights and custody became public |
| November 2024 | The custody litigation reportedly concluded, with the outcome sealed |
| 2025 onward | Grimes continued publicly raising concerns about her children’s privacy |
2018: Their Relationship Becomes Public
Grimes and Musk’s appearance at the 2018 Met Gala immediately turned their relationship into an international celebrity story.
Their relationship was unconventional from the beginning. Grimes was known for avant-garde music and art, while Musk was associated with electric vehicles, rockets and Silicon Valley technology.
2020: Birth of Their First Child
Their first child was born on May 4, 2020.
Musk originally announced his name as X Æ A-12 Musk. Because of California naming rules, the spelling was later reported as X Æ A-Xii.
Grimes explained that different parts of the name referenced an unknown variable, artificial intelligence and the A-12 aircraft, among other personal references.
The child is generally referred to simply as X.
2021: Musk Says They Are “Semi-Separated”
By September 2021, the relationship had changed significantly.
Musk told Page Six that he and Grimes were “semi-separated” but continued to see each other and remained involved in raising their child. He attributed some of their separation to their professional lives placing them in different locations.
This was not immediately presented as a conventional breakup. Their relationship continued in a less clearly defined form.
December 2021: Exa Dark Sideræl Is Born
Grimes and Musk’s second child, Exa Dark Sideræl Musk, was born through a surrogate in December 2021.
Her existence became public during Grimes’ 2022 Vanity Fair interview after the journalist reportedly heard the baby during the interview.
Grimes explained that “Exa” referenced the computing term exaFLOPS, while “Dark” represented the unknown and “Sideræl” referenced sidereal or “star” time. The child has frequently been called Y, complementing her older brother’s nickname X.
Why Did Grimes and Elon Musk Break Up?
There is no single publicly established event that fully explains the breakup.
Their relationship appears to have gradually shifted because of different lifestyles, work demands and an unconventional arrangement they themselves described as fluid. When interviewed for Vanity Fair in early 2022, Grimes described Musk as her boyfriend but said they lived separately and had their own lives.
After the interview was published in March 2022, however, Grimes clarified publicly that they had broken up again since the interview took place.
That clarification is important because older profiles sometimes quote the Vanity Fair interview as evidence that they were still together without mentioning that Grimes updated her relationship status almost immediately afterward.
There has been no reliable public confirmation that Grimes and Musk subsequently resumed a conventional romantic relationship.
How Many Children Do Grimes and Elon Musk Have?
Grimes and Elon Musk have three publicly confirmed children together.
| Child | Birth | Common Nickname | Publicly Known Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| X Æ A-Xii | May 4, 2020 | X | First child |
| Exa Dark Sideræl | December 2021 | Y | Born via surrogate |
| Techno Mechanicus | June 2022, reportedly | Tau | Existence revealed publicly in 2023 |
X Æ A-Xii
X is their eldest child. He was born in May 2020 and has become the most publicly visible of the three children.
Grimes has subsequently expressed concern about the level of publicity surrounding her children and has said she would prefer to keep them outside public life.
Exa Dark Sideræl
Their daughter Exa was born through a surrogate in December 2021.
Unlike X, she has generally appeared less often publicly. Grimes has repeatedly indicated that she wants significant privacy for her children.
Techno Mechanicus
For some time, the public believed Grimes and Musk had only two children.
That changed in September 2023 when Walter Isaacson’s biography Elon Musk disclosed that they also had a son named Techno Mechanicus Musk, nicknamed Tau.
The Los Angeles Times, citing an advance copy of Isaacson’s biography, reported that Tau was born through a surrogate in June 2022. Musk subsequently publicly confirmed the child.
This means Tau was born after Grimes had publicly announced that she and Musk had broken up again.
Why Is Their Third Child Called Tau?
Techno Mechanicus is commonly called Tau.
According to Walter Isaacson’s biography, the nickname references the Greek letter tau and the mathematical constant approximately equal to twice pi. Its approximate value, 6.28, was also linked in the book to Musk’s June 28 birthday.
It is better to distinguish this documented explanation from speculative interpretations of the child’s full name. There is no equally authoritative public explanation for every element of “Techno Mechanicus.”
Also Read: Sheryl Sandberg and Elon Musk
The 2023 Grimes and Elon Musk Custody Dispute
The relationship between Grimes and Musk became significantly more contentious publicly in 2023.
In September of that year, Grimes posted a since-deleted message asking Musk to allow her to see one of their sons and requesting a response to her lawyer. The comments emerged around the time Walter Isaacson was publicizing his Musk biography.
Legal proceedings concerning parental rights followed. Reporting described separate actions in Texas and California as the parents disagreed over jurisdiction and custody-related issues.
Because family court records can be sealed and because the children are minors, many details have never been made public. Claims about a precise current custody schedule therefore should not be stated as established fact.
Did the Custody Battle End?
Public reporting indicates that the custody litigation ended in November 2024, but the outcome was sealed.
Biography.com reported that the year-long dispute concluded at that time and that the sealed case prevents the public from knowing the exact arrangement reached between Musk and Grimes.
That distinction matters. The legal battle may have formally ended, but that does not mean the public has reliable access to information about where each child primarily lives, how parenting time is divided or what private agreements exist between the parents.
Grimes said in November 2024 that she had spent roughly a year in a legal battle and alleged that she had gone five months without seeing one of her children. Those statements represent Grimes’ account rather than independently established findings about the dispute.
Grimes’ Concerns About Her Children’s Privacy
Privacy has become one of the clearest areas of public disagreement surrounding Grimes and Elon Musk as parents.
In March 2025, Grimes said she had tried both personal requests and legal avenues to keep her children away from excessive public exposure. She described their visibility as a serious concern.
Her comments attracted particular attention because X has occasionally appeared publicly alongside Musk.
Grimes’ position appears to be that young children should have greater control over whether they become public figures. The exact private discussions between the parents are not known, so it would be speculative to characterize Musk’s personal reasoning beyond what he has publicly stated or done.
What Happened Between Grimes and Shivon Zilis?
Another complicated part of the story emerged when the public learned that Musk had fathered twins with Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis.
The twins were born in November 2021, shortly before Grimes and Musk’s daughter Exa was born.
Walter Isaacson’s reporting indicated that Grimes had not initially known about the twins. The situation contributed to a public conflict in 2023.
However, Grimes later said that she had spoken directly with Zilis and wanted to de-escalate the dispute. She publicly said she respected Zilis and wanted their children to be able to grow up knowing each other.
That later statement is important because social-media screenshots from the earlier dispute are sometimes circulated without the subsequent reconciliation between the two women.
Are Grimes and Elon Musk Still Together in 2026?
There is no reliable public evidence that Grimes and Elon Musk are currently together romantically.
Their publicly documented romantic relationship ended in 2022. Since then, most substantive information connecting them has concerned their three children, legal disagreements and co-parenting.
Calling them husband and wife would also be incorrect. Grimes and Elon Musk were never publicly known to have married.
References online describing Grimes as Musk’s “wife” should therefore be treated as inaccurate unless credible evidence of a marriage emerges.
Are Grimes and Elon Musk Still Friends?
Their relationship cannot accurately be summarized simply as either friendship or hostility.
In 2022, Grimes described Musk as her best friend even while confirming that they had broken up. Later developments included a difficult custody dispute and strong public criticism from Grimes.
Those events demonstrate that their relationship changed substantially over time.
The most accurate description based on the public record is that they are former romantic partners who remain linked as parents of three children. The quality of their private relationship at any specific moment cannot be reliably determined from social-media exchanges alone.
How Their Relationship Influenced Grimes’ Public Image
Dating Musk dramatically increased mainstream attention on Grimes beyond the music industry.
Before 2018, she already had an established career and significant critical recognition. Her 2012 album Visions and 2015 album Art Angels had made her one of the better-known figures in experimental pop.
The Musk relationship nevertheless changed the scale and type of attention she received. Interviews increasingly focused on Musk, technology, parenthood and their unconventional family rather than solely on her music.
Grimes has continued creating music and visual work independently, making it misleading to define her career primarily through Musk.
Technology, Art and Their Shared Futurism
One reason the Grimes and Elon Musk relationship fascinated the public was that their interests overlapped despite their radically different careers.
Both frequently discussed:
- Artificial intelligence
- Space exploration
- Science fiction
- Technology’s effect on humanity
- Futuristic culture
- Long-term human civilization
Their children’s highly unconventional names also reflected these interests.
The relationship therefore became culturally interesting beyond ordinary celebrity coverage. It represented a highly visible intersection between Silicon Valley technology culture and experimental art.
That intellectual overlap, however, should not be mistaken for evidence that they shared identical political or philosophical positions. Grimes has publicly disagreed with Musk on various subjects over the years.
What Is Confirmed and What Remains Private?
A considerable amount of inaccurate material about Grimes and Musk circulates online, particularly concerning their children and custody arrangements.
The reliably documented picture is narrower.
Confirmed publicly:
- They began dating in 2018.
- They appeared together at the 2018 Met Gala.
- They share three children.
- Their romantic relationship ended publicly in 2022.
- A parental-rights and custody dispute emerged in 2023.
- Reporting indicates that the litigation ended in 2024.
- Grimes has publicly asked for greater privacy for their children.
Not reliably established publicly:
- Their exact current custody schedule.
- The children’s current primary residences.
- Private financial arrangements between Grimes and Musk.
- The full details of the sealed custody agreement.
- A current romantic reconciliation between Grimes and Musk.
Maintaining that distinction prevents rumors about a high-profile family from being repeated as facts.
FAQ
Are Grimes and Elon Musk married?
No. Grimes and Elon Musk were romantically involved, but there is no credible public record showing that they ever married.
Are Grimes and Elon Musk still together?
No current reliable evidence shows that they are romantically together. Grimes publicly said they had broken up again in March 2022, and subsequent reporting has treated them as former partners and co-parents.
How many children do Grimes and Elon Musk have together?
They have three children together: X Æ A-Xii, Exa Dark Sideræl and Techno Mechanicus, also known as Tau.
Who is Grimes and Elon Musk’s youngest child?
Their youngest publicly known child together is Techno Mechanicus Musk, nicknamed Tau. Walter Isaacson’s biography reported that he was born in June 2022, and his existence became public in September 2023.
Did Grimes and Elon Musk have a custody battle?
Yes. Public reporting documents a custody and parental-rights dispute beginning in 2023. The litigation reportedly ended in November 2024, but the final arrangement was sealed and therefore is not publicly known.
Why does Grimes want her children kept private?
Grimes has said publicly that she is deeply concerned about her children’s lives becoming public and has tried to limit their online exposure. In 2025, she said she had appealed both privately and through legal avenues to protect their privacy.
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