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Grimes And Elon Musk’s Unconventional Parenting Style

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Grimes and Elon Musk are raising their toddler by a rulebook nobody else is using.

When Claire Boucher, the musician known as Grimes, and Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk had their son on May 4, 2020, they didn’t just skip a conventional name — they skipped most of conventional parenting, too. No “mom,” no gendered assumptions, no standard bedtime playlist, and, as of September 2021, no traditional custody setup either. The child, X Æ A-Xii, has become the test case for two of the most unconventional minds in tech and pop music trying to co-write a childhood.

• Musk told journalist Maureen Dowd in 2020 that Grimes carried the load in the child’s infancy, saying, “Right now there’s not much I can do. Grimes has a much bigger role than me right now.”
• Grimes has said she doesn’t identify with the label “mother,” doesn’t want X to call her “mom,” and that he refers to her by her first name, Claire — part of a broader plan to let the child determine his own gender identity rather than impose expectations on him.
• In September 2021, Musk confirmed he and Grimes were “semi-separated” after three years together, while maintaining shared custody and an amicable co-parenting relationship.

No “Mom,” No Stereotypes

Before X was born, Grimes laid out a parenting philosophy built around gender neutrality — letting their son figure out his own identity rather than steering him toward “boy” or “girl” expectations from birth. That same instinct shows up in how she wants to be addressed: not “mom,” but Claire. It’s a small linguistic choice that signals a much bigger one — Grimes has been explicit that she doesn’t see the traditional maternal label as fitting how she wants to relate to her son.

Ambient Sound Instead of Baby Shark

Where most infants get nursery rhymes, X got an AI-generated “endless lullaby” that Grimes developed with the sleep-and-focus app Endel, engineered to soothe him without repeating the same loop every night. Grimes has also talked about watching decidedly non-baby-friendly cinema with him, including Apocalypse Now, favoring artistic and ambient immersion over standard infant programming. It’s the same sensibility that runs through her unconventional public persona as a musician who’s never followed the industry’s expected playbook.

“Right now there’s not much I can do. Grimes has a much bigger role than me right now.”

Musk’s Distrust of Traditional School

Musk’s skepticism of standard education didn’t start with X. Back in 2014, he founded Ad Astra, a secretive experimental school run out of SpaceX that ditched grade levels and standardized testing in favor of problem-solving and synthesis. During a Clubhouse session in February 2021, Musk went further, saying his older children had learned largely from YouTube and Reddit — a comment that fits neatly with his stated plan to fold X into the same hands-on, unstructured approach as he gets older, much like Musk has integrated his older kids into his work travel.

Co-Parenting Through a “Semi-Separation”

The unconventional streak extends to the parents’ own relationship status. In September 2021, Musk confirmed he and Grimes were “semi-separated” after three years together, but he described the split as amicable, with both continuing to share custody and raise X jointly. It’s the kind of arrangement that’s drawn its share of scrutiny, not unlike the custody dynamics that have made headlines across celebrity circles in 2021, though Musk has framed the co-parenting side of it as stable even as the romantic side shifted.

X turns two next May, right around the age Musk has said his involvement typically expands — the point at which his older kids started getting folded into his SpaceX and Tesla travel rather than staying mostly in Grimes’ orbit. Whether that means rocket launches instead of Endel lullabies is anyone’s guess, but with Ad Astra as the model, don’t expect a backpack and a school bus.