How Do You Pronounce Elon Musk’s Son’s Name, ‘X Æ A-12’?

Elon Musk has made so many headlines this year that it’s easy to forget the headlines that were written when he and singer Grimes gave their son, born in 2020, a truly unique name. The boy’s name is X, the same letter as the name Musk gave to Twitter and uses in SpaceX. But its full name is more complicated: it is “X Æ A-12”.

The boy is 4 now, but when he was a baby, his father appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast and confirmed the pronunciation of the name.

“How do you say the name?” » asked Rogan. “Is this a placeholder?”

Apparently not. Musk said at the time that the name was pronounced “X Ash A Twelve.” (“Æ” is a character used in some languages, including Danish and Norwegian. It is often pronounced “ash”, but some people pronounce each letter as “A E.”)

“First of all, my partner came up with the name the most,” Musk said of Grimes. “I mean, it’s just X, the letter X, and the ‘Æ’ is pronounced ‘Ash,’ and then A-12 is my contribution.” He went on to say that A-12 stood for “Archangel 12, the precursor to the SR-71, the coolest plane ever.”

Musk has 14 children in total, with four different women, according to People. His other children with Grimes are a daughter, Exa Dark Sideræl, 2, and a son, Tau Techno Mechanicus, 3.

In February, before President Donald Trump and Musk had a high-profile argument, X appeared with his father in the Oval Office, where the president called the toddler a “high IQ individual.”

But the boy’s mother was not happy.

“He shouldn’t be out in public like that,” X’s mother, singer Grimes, said, according to The Standard. “I didn’t see that, thanks for alerting me. But I’m glad he was polite. Sigh.”

Listen to Elon Musk say X’s full name

If you want to hear Musk say X’s full name, you don’t need to fast forward through much of the video. Rogan asks him to say it just 37 seconds into the 2020 podcast.

Grimes tweeted a more detailed explanation of why the different parts of the name were chosen in 2020. She called X “the unknown variable” and said Æ was “my Elvish spelling of Ai”, which she explained as “love and/or artificial intelligence”.

As for the A-12, she called the plane “our favorite plane,” before touting its “no weapons, no defense, just speed. Excellent in combat, but non-violent.” Grimes also noted that the A in A-12 stood for “Archangel”, which she said was “my favorite song”. She didn’t specify which song – many songs are titled Archangel – but some music sites have guessed she may be talking about the song by the band Burial. Grimes once listed the song Archangel by Burial as a favorite on her Tumblr.

She ended her tweet with the words “metal rat” and an emoji of crossed swords and a rat. 2020 was the year of the “metal rat” according to the Chinese zodiac, although of course it can also simply mean “heavy metal music fan”.

Grimes mistyped SR-17 instead of SR-71, but Musk corrected her in another tweet, writing, “SR-71, but yes.”

To which she replied: “I’m recovering from surgery and I’m barely alive, so my typos are forgiven but, damn. That was supposed to be profound.”

The name may not appear on the baby’s official California birth certificate — at least not in the spelling shared by his parents. A California family law attorney told People magazine that while the name is not illegal, the state does not allow symbols on birth certificates. Apostrophes, as in a last name like O’Connor, are allowed, and it would appear that the hyphen can also pass. But symbols like “Æ” could cause the certificate to be rejected and parents would have to resubmit it.

At the time, Musk also noted that he was happy that the baby was born on May 4, commonly known as Star Wars Day because of the saying “May the Fourth (Force) be with you.”