How Elon Musk pronounces ‘X Æ A-12’, his new son’s name

Elon Musk and singer Grimes greeted a son on Monday, but the world puzzled over the baby’s name. Musk said it was “X Æ A-12”, but it wasn’t until Thursday when the founder of Tesla and SpaceX appeared on the podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience” that he confirmed the pronunciation of the name.

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

Apparently not. Musk says the name is pronounced “X Ash A Twelve” as it looks. (“Æ” is a character used in some languages, including Danish and Norwegian. It is often pronounced as “ashes”, but some people pronounce every letter and say “A E.”)

“First of all, my partner is the one who mostly invented the name,” Musk said about Grimes. “I mean it’s just X, the letter X, um, and the ‘Æ’ is pronounced, ‘Ash,’ and then A-12 is my contribution.” He continued that A-12 stood for “Archangel 12, the forerunner of the SR-71, the coolest airplane ever”.

If you want to hear Musk say, you don’t have to fast forward much of the video. Rogan asks him to say it on the podcast for only 37 seconds.

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

As for the A-12, it called the aircraft “our favorite aircraft” and pointed out “no weapons, no defense, only speed. Great in combat, but non-violent”. Grimes also noticed that the A in A-12 stood for “Archangel”, which she called “my favorite song”. She did not specify which song – numerous songs have the title “Archangel” – but some music sites I guess she could mean it the song from the band Burial. Grimes once quoted Burial’s “Archangel” song as a favorite on her Tumblr.

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

Grimes mistyped SR-17 instead of SR-71, but Musk corrected it in another tweet and wrote, “SR-71, yes.”

To which she replied: “I have just recovered from the operation and I am barely alive, so my typing errors may be forgiven, but damn it. It should be profound.”

Whatever the name means, it’s possible that it won’t appear on the baby’s official California birth certificate – at least not in the spelling that has been shared so far. A California family law lawyer told People magazine that while the name isn’t illegal, The state does not allow symbols on birth certificates. Apostrophes, like in a surname like O’Connor, are allowed, and it appears that the hyphen also comes through, but the “Æ” could cause the certificate to be rejected and the parents have to submit it again.

Musk also noted that he was happy that the baby was born on May 4th, commonly known as Star Wars Day for the saying “May the fourth (power) be with you.”

This wasn’t Musk’s only memorable appearance on Rogan’s podcast. In 2018, he appeared on the show and apparently took a puff of a marijuana cigarette. Recreational marijuana is legal in California, but remains illegal at the federal level.