How They Met, Broke up, Had 2 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.

Source: Juno Awards, Insider

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.

Source: Twitter

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.

Source: Page Six

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.”

Source: Vice, The Verge

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.

—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 8, 2021

Source: Insider

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.

Source: Page Six

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.

Source: Insider

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.

Source: Insider, National Geographic, The New Yorker, The New York Times

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.

Source: Page Six, Insider, Insider