At Tuesday's press conference with President Donald Trump, Elon Musk's four-year-old son stole the show by mimicking his father in the Oval Office.
Mr Musk was at the White House to observe Mr Trump sign an executive order mandating government agencies to comply with the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) attempts to lower expenses after experiencing criticism last week.
Mr Musk, who referred to himself as an open book, also answered questions from reporters for the first time since becoming a special federal employee in the Trump administration.
His son, X Æ A-Xii, was a cute distraction as Mr Musk addressed the questions. He pulled faces, clung to his father's shoulders, and interrupted him numerous times.
One clip even captured the moment X picked his nose and wiped it on the desk.
Cuteness overload!
— Brigitte Gabriel (@ACTBrigitte) February 11, 2025
Elon Musk is talking about how he's going to cut the deficit in half and his son X is whispering to President Trump and picking his nose.
Little boys will be boys! It's nice to see beautiful young families back inside the White House! pic.twitter.com/OTJz4VrO6o
In other moments, he also stuck his fingers in his dad’s ears, and copied his father’s hand gestures as they stood side by side.
How do you pronounce X Æ A-12 Musk?
Singer and Mr Musk’s ex-girlfriend Grimes gave birth to X Æ A-12 Musk on May 2020.
Grimes explained what the name is – but not how to say it out loud.
"X, the unknown variable. Æ, my elven spelling of Ai (love &/or Artificial intelligence)." The A also stands for 'Archangel’, her favourite song.
•X, the unknown variable ⚔️
— 𝖦𝗋𝗂𝗆𝖾𝗌 ⏳ (@Grimezsz) May 6, 2020
•Æ, my elven spelling of Ai (love &/or Artificial intelligence)
•A-12 = precursor to SR-17 (our favorite aircraft). No weapons, no defenses, just speed. Great in battle, but non-violent 🤍
+
(A=Archangel, my favorite song)
(⚔️🐁 metal rat)
To try to figure out the exact pronunciation, I took to Reddit first. A search for "Reddit Grimes baby" returns some answers – but not all.
Here are two conspiracy theories from the same savvy user: "Someone suggested X Ash Archangel could be shortened to 'SAshA, so basically Sasha. It would explain the letter X's presence. Someone else on Twitter suggested X was short for Xavier (as in Professor X I think), but one of Elon's sons already has this name."
But these came before the full explanation, so I had to dig deeper into Elon's psyche.
Remember, Elon already had 11 children before having X Æ A-12, so it was probably tricky coming up with new names for one. One was already called Xavier, so it's highly unlikely he decided on having two sons pronounced the same way.
Another Grimes follower believes this is all an elaborate hoax and they're keeping the baby's name on the down-low.
They wrote, "I remember she said she intends to protect her baby's privacy when the dumb news about warnymph being 'an instagram for her unborn baby' started going around. This makes me think this name is just what she's giving the internet, plus the fact you cant use these characters in a name by law in California."
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 5, 2020
Ai is pronounced "eye" so that could be a quick nickname for the moment.
Then, I took to Twitter to see what people were saying there.
a lot of people have been wondering how to pronounce grimes' baby name and it's pretty common in my country, so i recorded myself pronouncing it to help you guys out :) pic.twitter.com/germUvZWBQ
— christina ☁️ (@stonemilfer) May 5, 2020
There were multiple pronunciation videos but they weren't quite right.
made a video on how to pronounce X Æ A-12 for anyone who is confused pic.twitter.com/lZ2i3NcoGD
— 🫒 (@olivelorraine_) May 5, 2020
Luckily, Mr Musk somewhat cleared the air when he appeared on Joe Rogan's podcast. He clarified that Æ should be pronounced “Ash." He also explained that Grimes was the mastermind behind the name.
“First of all, my partner is the one that, actually, mostly, came up with the name,” Mr Musk explained, adding that "she’s great at names.”
He said, “I mean it’s just X, the letter X. And then, the Æ is, like, pronounced ‘Ash'...and then, A-12, A-12 is my contribution.”
We're still a tad confused – perhaps his name is just Gary.
