Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of Tesla and SpaceX, is in a legal dispute with his ex-partner Grimes, the Canadian singer and producer, over the parental rights of their three children. The most visible of them is their son X Æ A-Xii, who recently accompanied his father to a football game amid the ongoing custody battle.
A Rare Outing for X
X Æ A-Xii, who is 3 years old, was seen with his father at the Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts on Saturday, where they watched the New England Patriots play against the Buffalo Bills. The father-son duo looked happy and relaxed as they walked around the stadium, with X riding on Musk’s shoulders and in a golf cart. X wore a blue T-shirt, jeans and sneakers, while Musk donned an all-black outfit.
This was a rare public appearance for X, who has mostly been kept out of the spotlight by his parents. The unusual name of the boy, which is pronounced “Ex Ash A Twelve”, has attracted a lot of attention and curiosity from the media and the public. According to Grimes, the name is a reference to the Archangel, her favorite song, and the precursor to the SR-71, the fastest plane ever.
A Complex Legal Battle
Musk and Grimes, whose real name is Claire Boucher, started dating in 2018 and welcomed X in May 2020. They also have two other children, a daughter named Exa Dark Sideræl and another child named Techno Mechanicus, who were born via surrogate in December 2021. The details of their names, sexes and birth dates are not publicly known.
The former couple, who split in 2022, are now suing each other for parental rights of their children in different states. Musk filed a petition in Texas in September 2023, seeking to become the legal parent of their children. Grimes filed a similar petition in California in the same month, requesting physical custody of the kids and a restraining order to prevent Musk from moving them out of the state.
The legal battle is complicated by the fact that Musk claims to be a full-time resident of Texas, where he has been building a new factory and a city called Starbase. Grimes, on the other hand, argues that she has no ties to Texas and that she moved to California with her youngest two children in December 2022. She also alleges that Musk is in California two to three days a week.
The Impact on the Children
The custody dispute between Musk and Grimes has raised concerns about the impact on their children, especially X, who is at a crucial stage of development. According to experts, children of high-profile parents may face challenges such as privacy invasion, unrealistic expectations, identity issues and emotional stress.
Dr. Lisa Damour, a clinical psychologist and author of “Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood”, told Page Six that children of celebrities need “a lot of support” from their parents and caregivers to cope with the pressures of fame and fortune.
“They need to have a sense of who they are outside of their parents’ public personas, and they need to have a lot of opportunities to develop their own interests and talents,” she said. “They also need to have a lot of privacy and boundaries, and they need to be protected from the media and the public as much as possible.”
Damour added that children of divorced parents may also struggle with loyalty conflicts, confusion and anger, depending on how their parents handle the separation and the custody arrangements.
“The best thing that parents can do for their children in a divorce is to keep the conflict away from them, to be respectful of each other, and to make sure that the children have a lot of contact and quality time with both parents,” she said.
