X Æ A-12

About

X Æ A-12 is a name that Elon Musk claimed to belong to his newborn son in a tweet posted the night of the child's birth in early May 2020. The announcement spawned numerous memes and jokes speculating that the child is actually a robot, as well as online discussions about whether Musk had accurately identified the name or if it was merely a joke. Some have speculated that the correct pronouncement of the name is "Ecks Ash Archangel."

Origin

On May 4th, 2020, Musk's girlfriend Grimes gave birth to a boy. After posting about the child on Twitter,^[1] user @priscillabanana asked for the baby's name to which Musk replied: "X Æ A-12 Musk," which received over 39,500 likes and 4,00 retweets within 24 hours (shown below).

Although unconfirmed, many online have begun to speculate the proper pronunciation of the baby's name. The most common version seen is "X Ash Archangel." This translation is based on "Æ" being an a-e ligature named "Ash," found in Latin originally. "Archangel" stems from the Lockheed A-12 aircraft, built for use by the CIA. Some have also speculated that the "X" might stand for "Ten" like the Roman numeral.

Spread

That day, Twitter^[2] user @zuunk tweeted a video of a young boy dubbed with electronic sound effects and the message "X Æ A-12 when he talks" (shown below).

Meanwhile, Twitter^[3] user @bobvulfov posted a video of a Boston Dynamics robot with the caption "X Æ A-12 Musk running to catch the school bus" (shown below).

Twitter^[4] user @helen also commented on the name in a tweet that day (seen below), suggesting that the child recharges with a USB cable.

On Reddit, several Redditors also discussed the child's strange name through memes and various threads. One such example was posted by Redditor^[5] sAdB0i69 to the r/elonmusk sub. The meme (shown below) received 280 upvotes and 20 comments.

The Instagram^[6] account memequeen shared another meme referencing the baby later that day, along with the caption, "Who came up with the name???" The post (seen below) was viewed over 50,000 times and liked nearly 5,000 times.

Grimes' Response

That evening, Grimes tweeted^[7] an explanation of the child's name, indicating that "X" represented "the unknown variable,"Æ" as the "elven spelling of AI" and "A-12" as the archangel aircraft (shown below).

Name Update

On May 24th, Grimes responded to a question about the name on Instagram.^[8] They wrote, "Did you change the name because of Californian laws? What is the baby's new name?" Grimes wrote, "X Æ-Xii," indicating the numeral 12 had been changed to the Roman numeral "Xii."

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References