Grimes Sues Elon Musk Over Parental Rights Of Their Three Kids

Just weeks after the existence of Elon Musk’s eleventh child, Techno Mechanicus a.k.a. “Tau,” was made public, the baby’s mother, musician Grimes, is suing Musk over parental rights of their three children. Grimes, whose real name is Claire Boucher, filed a petition to establish a parental relationship in San Francisco on September 29. The move comes after the musician had posted a series of tweets indicating discontent with her parenting arrangement with Musk.

Grimes and Musk have been connected since 2018. In recent years, the pair’s relationship has been unconvevntional at best, with Grimes describing their relationship as “fluid,” and contentious at worst. Last month Walter Isaacson posted images from his new biography on Musk, which included images of Grimes’ eldest son and Musk with Shivon Zilis, an employee of Musk’s with whom he had two children. In a since-deleted tweet, the musician responded,

“Tell Shivon to unblock me and tell Elon to let me see my son or plz respond to my lawyer. I have never even been allowed to see a photo of these children until this moment, despite the situation utterly ripping my family apart.”

Grimes deleted the tweet, and followed it up days later with another.

“Hey, I wud prefer to not breathe any more life into this current press cycle but I want to de-escalate the narrative atm,” she wrote.

“I spoke with Shivon at length finally, which was long overdue. This wasn't her fault, plz don't be angry at her! We respect each other a lot and we're excited to become friends and have the kids grow up together. I truly apologize for responding to Walter like that. As u can imagine, that was a very gut level reaction to a thing that has been very hard for me. Communication about the twins wasn't handled super well in the past, but I now totally understand what happened and totally forgive the situation. Women are so often pitted against each other. Speaking with Shivon, it's very evident she's an amazing human and we both just want what's best for our kids. I wish I could show u how cute little Techno is but my priority rn is keeping my babies out of the public eye.”

Musk was named Time’s 2021 Person of the Year and is estimated to be the richest man in the world with a net worth of over $251.3 billion, according to Forbes. Known for being eccentric and mercurial, he’s made headlines with some of his more outrageous ideas (habitation on Mars, for example). But perhaps one of his most interesting takes is when he told Wall Street Journal in December 2021 that he believes in the importance of having more kids for the good of humanity, a sentiment he has repeatedly addressed on Twitter.

The CEO of SpaceX, Tesla Inc., and X (formerly and colloquially Twitter), among other companies, is dad to eight sons and three daughters. He’s had children with three different women through natural birth, IVF, and surrogacy. This unique family (and some of the kids’ hard-to-pronounce names!) is broken down for you, below.

Here’s what we knew about Musk and his considerable brood.

Nevada Alexander

Nevada Alexander was born in May 2002 to Musk and his ex-wife Justine. He died at 10 weeks old due to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). In an essay for Marie Claire in 2010, Justine wrote, “Nevada went down for a nap, placed on his back as always, and stopped breathing. He was 10 weeks old, the age when male infants are most susceptible to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).” The Sleep Foundation says the risk for SIDS peaks between one and four months.

Justine said paramedics resuscitated him, but “he had been deprived of oxygen for so long that he was brain-dead.” Justine added, “He spent three days on life support in a hospital in Orange County before we made the decision to take him off it. I held him in my arms when he died.”

In a 2018 email to James Riley, the father of 18-year-old Barrett Riley, who died in a Tesla car crash, Musk said, “There’s nothing worse than losing a child.” According to Bloomberg, Musk later wrote: “My firstborn son died in my arms. I felt his last heartbeat.” (Justine would go on to contest this on Twitter.)

Vivian and Griffin

Twins Vivian and Griffin, 18, were born to Musk and Justine less than two years after Nevada died. In her essay for Marie Claire, Justine said the two were conceived via in-vitro fertilization (IVF).

In April 2022, just one day after her 18th birthday, Vivian petitioned Los Angeles Superior Court for a change of name, recognition of change of gender, and issuance of a new birth certificate. Documents cite the reason for the change to Vivian Jenna Wilson from her birth name as twofold: “Gender Identity and the fact that I no longer live or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape, or form.”

Damian, Saxon, and Kai

Damian, Saxon, and Kai, 16, are the triplet sons of Musk and Wilson, also conceived via IVF. In a 2017 TedTalk, Justine told the audience, “So, I have five kids. Twins and triplets. All boys,” she said, while laughing. “No multiples do not run in my family, and, yes, it was IVF, so let’s just get that on the table.”

In the same talk, she shared some of the typical mom things she often says, including, “Please, take the lightsabers off the dinner table,” “You know, I would prefer it if you did not eat your brother’s head,” and “No, the dog is not a rocket, so you do not have permission to launch him.” Those directives are all too relatable...

X Æ A-Xii

In 2020, X Æ A-Xii (formerly X Æ A-12) was born to Musk and Grimes. On Twitter, Grimes broke down what this unique name means. She said X is “the unknown variable,” Æ is “my elven spelling of Ai (love &/or Artificial intelligence),” A-12 is “precursor to SR-17 (our favorite aircraft). No weapons, no defenses, just speed. Great in battle, but non-violent,” and A means “Archangel, my favorite song” with the number “12” representing the rat in the Chinese zodiac.

In August 2022, Musk shared on Twitter that in he had previously given himself and X matching haircuts “after watching one too many episodes of Vikings.” In December of the same year, the billionaire shared a picture of the 2 year old “in beautiful San Francisco,” followed up with a picture of the little one’s official Twitter badge clipped to his jeans, lending credence to the boy’s mother telling Vanity Fair in April “I think E is really seeing [X] as a protégé and bringing him to everything and stuff.”

Strider and Azure

In July 2022, Insider broke the news that in November 2021 Musk welcomed twins with Shivon Zilis. Though the outlet did not reveal the children’s names in order to protect their privacy (something that was ultimately revealed in Walter Isaacson’s biography on Musk), they did note that court documents revealed that Zilis and Musk sought (successfully) to change the babies names to “have their father’s last name and contain their mother’s last name as part of their middle name.” The court filing also showed that the parents appear to be residing in the same multimillion-dollar home in a gated community in Austin, Texas.

Though the twins (#8 and #9 for those of you keeping count) are older than Musk’s youngest daughter by just weeks, news of their birth came after the announcement of baby #10.

Exa Dark Sideræl

In the Vanity Fair cover story, Grimes revealed that she and Musk used a surrogate to have Exa Dark Sideræl in 2021, a daughter whose name they pronounce as “Y.”

Exa references “the supercomputing term exaFLOPS (the ability to perform 1 quintillion floating-point operations per second),” according to Vanity Fair. Dark, meanwhile, is “the unknown. People fear it but truly it’s the absence of photons. Dark matter is the beautiful mystery of our universe,” Grimes said.

It is pronounced “sigh-deer-ee-el,” which is an elven spelling of sidereal, “the true time of the universe, star time, deep space time, not our relative earth time.” It also references Galadriel from Lord of the Rings, who “chooses to abdicate the ring.”

Grimes and Musk also sometimes call their daughter, Sailor Mars, in reference to the manga series, Sailor Moon. They have not publicly shared any photos of Y yet.

Techno Mechanicus

In reviewing a new biography on Musk, The New York Times revealed that Musk and Grimes had welcomed a third child together, Musk’s 11th overall. The Los Angeles Times reports that the baby, named Techno Mechanicus is nicknamed Tau. “The baby boy’s nickname ... was inspired by ‘the Greek letter representing the irrational number that is equal to two times pi,’” the LAT explains, quoting the biography directly. “The approximate numerical value, 6.28, doubles as a nod to Musk’s birthday, June 28.”

Musk seemed to confirm this information via a tweet, “Tau Techno Mechanicus,” he replied to PopBase, followed somewhat bafflingly by “Circumference/Diameter.”

So is Tau actually Musk’s last child? Are there others we just don’t know about yet? We’ll keep you posted.