Art pop singer Grimes and Tesla/SpaceX CEO Elon Musk welcomed their first baby boy named X Æ A-12 (pronounced “X Ash A-12” according to dad and “X A.I. A-12” according to mom) earlier this week.
But before they brought life into this world, the two had an on-and-off relationship that felt as eccentric as them from the moment they stepped foot together at the 2018 Met Gala to the moment X Æ A-12 came to Earth.
Billboard compiled a timeline of Grimes and Elon Musk’s roller-coaster romance below.
May 2018: Musk and Grimes share their first spotlight as a couple at the 2018 Met Gala.
The most unpredictable couple has arrived: Elon Musk and Grimes (real name Claire Boucher). The two wore complementary black-and-white get-ups for the “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion & the Catholic Imagination” Costume Institute Gala after exchanging flirty tweets and poking fun at artificial intelligence with an obscure “Rococo Basilisk” joke only the two of them understood. Ah, modern love.
July 2018: Grimes accompanies Musk and his five sons to SpaceX’s Hyperloop Pod Competition.
Grimes hung out with her new beau and his twins and triplets from Musk’s ex-wife Justine Wilson.
August 2018: Azealia Banks describes her awkward third-wheeling encounter at Musk’s house.
In Banks’ typical fashion, she set social media ablaze by writing on her Instagram story that she visited Musk at home for a weekend to collaborate with his girlfriend on new music. “I waited around all weekend while grimes coddled her boyfriend.” In another slide, she compared “staying in Elon musks house” to “a real like episode of Get Out.“
In an Instagram direct message exchange with Business Insider, Banks wrote that Musk was too preoccupied scrounging for investors after announcing he planned to make SpaceX go private and had already secured funding. “They bring me out there on the premise that we would hang and make music,” she said. “But his dumba– kept tweeting and tucked his di– in between his a– cheeks once sh– hit the fan.”
August 2018: Grimes and Musk unfollow each other on social media following feud with Banks.
Uh oh, looks like there was trouble in paradise after fans noticed the lovebirds had unfollowed each other on Instagram and Musk unfollowed her on Twitter.
October 2018: By fall, they happily reunited for a pumpkin patch with Musk’s kids.
Seasons change and relationship statuses do, too. Once October came around, things between Grimes and Musk cooled off for the two and his five sons to visit a pumpkin patch together in Los Angeles, California. Musk later re-followed the Canadian singer on Twitter. What a treat!
December 2019: Musk praises Grimes’ performance at The Game Awards with a standing ovation.
At one of the biggest gaming events of the year, Musk took a night off from his busy schedule to support his girlfriend. Grimes put on a futuristic, CGI-perfected performance inspired by the “Cyberpunk 2077” role-playing video game that will feature her music and a character she voices named Lizzy Wizzy. Head to 2:56 in the video to see Musk honor her incredibly visual show.
[embedded content]
December 2019: A few more celebrity couples join their Christmas card: Kim Kardashian and Kanye West as well as Quavo and Saweetie.
When Kim Kardashian doesn’t just invite you to her family’s legendary Christmas Eve bash but also posts a picture with you for her 169 million followers, your couple status is rock solid.
January 2020: Grimes announces she’s pregnant by posing nude on Instagram.
The 32-year-old visual effects queen pulled one of her best stunts yet by posting a naked picture of herself on Instagram that showed behind her orange-and-black pigtail braids and inside her stomach was indeed an embryo. She previously announced her pregnant with the same picture exposing her nipples (which is against Instagram’s photo policy). In that since-deleted image, she observed that “being knocked up is a very feral & war-like state of being. Might as well be what it is.” But what felt more wild to fans was not knowing who the father was.
March 2020: Grimes confirms Musk is the father of her child in Rolling Stone cover story.
Grimes graced the cover of Rolling Stone with her baby bump, the perfect platform for the bona fide pop star to finally tell the world she would give birth to Musk’s sixth child and her first child.
May 2020: Their baby X Æ A-12 arrives!
On Monday (May 4), the tech billionaire updated a curious fan that their baby was only “a few hours away” before confirming “Mom & baby all good.” The 48-year-old businessman, who wore an “Occupy Mars” T-shirt in the delivery room, adorned his new son’s first picture with a filtered bundle of face tattoos à la Post Malone before “[breaking] the internet” with a sweet photo of him holding his baby boy.
Grimes took to Twitter shortly after his birth to explain his unusual government name, which a family law attorney explained would not be deemed valid in the state of California where X Æ A-12 was born. “In California, you can only use the ’26 characters’ of the English language in your baby name. Thus, you can’t have numbers, Roman numerals, accents, umlauts or other symbols or emojis. Although an apostrophe, for a name like ‘O’Connor,’ is acceptable.”
