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Sunday 26 March 2023
A timeline of Elon Musk's and Grimes' relationship, from making their debut at the Met Gala to co-parenting two kids together
Elon Musk and Grimes at the Met Gala in 2018.
RW/MediaPunch/IPx
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and the musician Grimes started dating in 2018.
Since then, they've broken up and gotten back together a few times — now, they appear to just be co-parents.
Here's a timeline of their relationship, including a move to Texas and the birth of two kids.
Claire Boucher, better known by her stage name, Grimes, is a Canadian singer and producer. She's also an outspoken advocate for female artists and their treatment by the press and music industry. She's released multiple albums to critical acclaim, and her breakout album, "Visions," won the Juno Award for Electronic Album of the Year.
Grimes and Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, met over Twitter. Musk was planning to make a joke about artificial intelligence and discovered she had beaten him to the punch via the Rococo Basilisk character from her "Flesh Without Blood" music video.
In May 2018, shortly before the annual Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Page Six reported that the pair had been "quietly dating" for a few weeks. The report announced that the couple planned to attend the Met Gala together, and that they had been tweeting at each other for a few months.
Rashid Umar Abbasi/Reuters; Neilson Barnard/Getty; Melia Robinson/Business Insider
Grimes and Musk did end up attending the Met Gala together, which was their first official appearance as a couple. Musk later told The Wall Street Journal that he loves Grimes for her "wild fae artistic creativity and hyper intense work ethic."
Grimes and Elon Musk attend The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala.
News of their relationship spurred an outpouring of memes by their legions of loyal fans online, who were caught by surprise by the unexpected pairing. Someone even made a Google Chrome extension that replaced all instances of "Elon Musk" on a webpage with "Grimes' Boyfriend."
Early on in their relationship, Grimes took to Twitter several times to defend Musk and Tesla. In since-deleted tweets, Grimes said Musk has never tried to stop Tesla workers from unionizing and claimed she encouraged a union vote among Tesla employees.
Grimes also began attending official events with Musk, like the Hyperloop Pod Competition in July 2018. She and Musk, along with his five sons, made an unscheduled appearance at the event.
—Humans of Late Capitalism 🕊️ (@HumansOfLate) July 25, 2018
That same month, after it was revealed that Musk had made donations to Republican political committees, Grimes defended his choice, calling it "the price of doing business." After her tweets began to receive some backlash, she added that "there is no world in which i'm ok w republican donations.."
That August, Musk sent this now infamous tweet: "Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured." He later admitted he picked the $420 share price as a joke to amuse Grimes, according to the SEC.
Elon Musk during an appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast.
Musk and Tesla eventually settled with the SEC over the tweet, agreeing to pay $20 million apiece. Musk also agreed to step down as chairman of Tesla's board and appoint a committee to oversee his communications.
Elon Musk.
Rapper Azealia Banks claimed to be at Musk's house in Los Angeles during that weekend while he was "scrounging for investors" following his tweet. She compared the situation to something out of the movie "Get Out."
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and rapper Azealia Banks.
Later that summer, Musk and Grimes unfollowed each other on Instagram, and Musk unfollowed Grimes on Twitter, which caused some to speculate that their relationship was on the rocks.
But by October, it appeared that they had reconnected: they were spotted at a pumpkin patch in Los Angeles with Musk's five sons. Musk also re-followed Grimes on Twitter.
Grimes and Elon Musk pose for photos at a public appearance.
A few months later, in January 2019, Grimes tweeted that she was "randomly" in China at the same time as Musk was opening Tesla's new factory in Shanghai. The two were filmed eating a meal together in Beijing.
In November 2019, Grimes may have made an appearance at the unveiling of Tesla's highly anticipated Cybertruck: the "cybergirl" hologram who unveiled the truck sported a seemingly identical leg tattoo as the one Grimes has. Many speculated the hologram was actually Grimes, although it was never confirmed.
A few weeks later, the couple was spotted cruising around Los Angeles in the Cybertruck, stopping to grab dinner at high-end Japanese restaurant Nobu.
Elon Musk introduces the newly unveiled all-electric battery-powered Tesla Cybertruck.
The couple stopped by the annual Kardashian-Jenner family Christmas Eve party that December, posing for a photo with Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, and rappers Travis Scott, Quavo, and Saweetie.
A post shared by Kim Kardashian West (@kimkardashian) on Dec 27, 2019 at 9:01pm PST
Then, in January, Grimes dropped a bombshell: she posted a nude photo to her Instagram and Twitter accounts that showed her pregnant with a fetus Photoshopped on her belly. The post didn't include a caption, but in a comment on the post, Grimes appeared to imply that she was, in fact, pregnant.
Grimes later confirmed that she was expecting a baby. She said in February 2020 that the internet had already guessed some of the names she was considering for her child.
In a March 2020 Rolling Stone interview, Grimes confirmed for the first time that she and Musk were having the baby together. Days before Grimes' due date, Musk acknowledged the pregnancy on Twitter.
On the evening of May 4, Musk announced on Twitter that the baby was born, saying "Mom & baby all good." In follow-up tweets, Musk wrote that the couple had a baby boy. One Twitter user asked Musk the name of their child, to which he responded, "X Æ A-12 Musk."
The couple later amended the baby's name to "X Æ A-Xii" due to California naming laws, but they appear to call him, simply, "X."
Grimes posted a video of Musk holding the baby earlier this year.
In late 2020, Musk announced that he had moved to Texas over a spat with the state of California over coronavirus lockdowns. The couple was spotted hanging out in Austin, and Grimes also confirmed that she had moved to the Texas capital.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk in Germany this week.
In March 2021, Musk posted a rare family photo of him, Grimes, and baby X with the caption "Starbase, Texas," a reference to the city he hopes to create around SpaceX's launch facilities.
When Musk hosted "Saturday Night Live" in May of last year, Grimes made a cameo, appearing as Princess Peach in a Super Mario-themed sketch.
Grimes during a sketch on "Saturday Night Live."
But the move to Texas appeared to put a strain on their relationship. In September 2021, Musk told Page Six that he and Grimes were "semi-separated" but still loved each other and were on great terms. "It's mostly that my work at SpaceX and Tesla requires me to be primarily in Texas or traveling overseas and her work is primarily in LA," he said at the time.
SpaceX Elon Musk.
He added that Grimes is "staying with me now and Baby X is in the adjacent room." Soon after, Grimes posted a video on TikTok of her trying to get X to say "mama" — Musk's voice was audible in the background.
Elon Musk and Grimes in New York City in May 2021.
Both Musk and Grimes have an interest in 13th-century Mongol ruler Genghis Khan, whose DNA can be traced to millions of descendants living today. A 2015 New Yorker article about Grimes said she had a "complicated fixation" on him, while Musk himself said in a New York Times story from 2020 that she seemed to be "obsessed" with Khan and the Mongols.
People visit the Genghis Khan Equestrian Statue at the Genghis Khan Statue Complex, east of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
In March 2022, Grimes revealed a major secret: she and Musk had had another child together via surrogate, a baby girl named Exa Dark Sideræl Musk, called Y for short. The baby's existence was discovered by a Vanity Fair reporter who visited Grimes at home and heard a baby crying upstairs.
"I would probably refer to him as my boyfriend, but we're very fluid," Grimes told Vanity Fair. "We live in separate houses. We're best friends. We see each other all the time." She also said that they plan to have one or two more kids together. But after the interview was published, Grimes said she and Musk had already broken up again.
Elon Musk and Grimes
Pascal Le Segretiain/Getty Images, left, and Emma McIntyre/Getty Images
Since then, Grimes reportedly dated whistle-blower Chelsea Manning, while Musk was spotted with Australian actress Natasha Bassett. And in July, Insider reported that Musk had secretly fathered twins with one of his top executives at Neuralink, born weeks before his daughter with Grimes.
Elon Musk.
In March 2023 Grimes said she changed the name of her daughter with Elon Musk to a symbol, but that the government won’t officially acknowledge it.
Getty Images
Grimes said on Twitter that her daughter Exa Dark Sideræl's new name is "Y", or "Why?" or just "?". The singer also shared a rare photograph of Y with green hair.
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