Grimes, who shares three children with tech mogul Elon Musk, has filed a petition against her ex to establish parental relationship, according to court records.
Grimes is taking legal action against her ex Elon Musk over their children.
The “Crystal Ball” singer—who shares son X Æ A-12, 3, daughter Exa Dark Sideræl, 20 months, and son Techno Mechanicus with the Tesla CEO—has filed a petition seeking to establish parental rights, according to court records obtained by NBC News Oct. 3.
It appears Elon—who split from Grimes in March 2022 after four years of dating—has yet to formally respond to the filing. E! News has reached out to both Elon and Grimes’ reps for comment and has not heard back.
The legal move comes nearly a month after the artist, born Claire Boucher, publicly confirmed she and the tech mogul privately welcomed their youngest son, nicknamed Tau.
Prior to the revelation, in a since-deleted post shared to X (formerly known as Twitter) on Sept. 7, Grimes, 35, also addressed executive Shivon Zilis, with whom Elon shares 19-month-old twins and their custodial drama, writing, “Tell Shivon to unblock me and tell Elon to let me see my son or plz respond to my lawyer.”
However, most recently, the “Genesis” artist noted that she and Shivon were able to move forward and are on the same page.
“Hey, I wud prefer to not breathe any more life into this current press cycle but I want to de-escalate the narrative atm,” Grimes wrote on X Sept. 10. “I spoke with Shivon at length finally, which was long overdue. This wasn’t her fault, plz don’t be angry at her! We respect each other a lot and we’re excited to become friends and have the kids grow up together.”
She added, “Women are so often pitted against each other. Speaking with Shivon, it’s very evident she’s an amazing human and we both just want what’s best for our kids.”
The songwriter also reflected on her and Elon’s latest addition, noting that she wishes she could show “how cute little Techno is,” but explained her priority is keeping her children “out of the public eye” at this time.
Shortly after Grimes shared her message, Shivon, 37, confirmed that all was well.
“At the end of the day it all ended up for the best!” she responded on X. “Thank you for taking the time to really connect and understand each other. So glad we had such a wonderful talk, was insanely overdue. You’re a total badass and I respect you very much as well. I can’t wait for kiddo play date and congrats on baby Tau as well!”
Before welcoming kids with Grimes and Shivon, the Tesla CEO founder, 52, previously welcomed six children with ex-wife Justine Musk.
Keep reading for a closer look at Elon’s family tree.
Maye Musk, Mother
Maye was born in Saskatchewan, Canada and emigrated with her parents to Pretoria, South Africa in 1950, when she was 7. She and Elon’s father, Errol, split in 1979.
After Elon moved to Canada at age 17, Maye obtained Canadian citizenship by birthright and moved there too, as did his siblings. There, she established a dietician practice and became President of the Consulting Dieticians of Canada, per Forbes. She also worked as a model.
In 2019, after Elon sold his company Zip2 to Compaq for more than $300 million, he bought his mom an apartment in New York City, where she lived for 13 years and continued her modeling career. She is signed to the IMG Models agency.
“I brought my children up like my parents brought us up when we were young: to be independent, kind, honest, considerate and polite,” Maye wrote in an essay for CNBC. “I taught them the importance of working hard and doing good things.”
Errol Musk, Father
Elon’s father is an engineer and like Elon, was born in South Africa. In the 2015 biography Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, author Ashlee Vance wrote that Elon and his dad had a difficult relationship. In an emotional 2017 Rolling Stone interview, Elon criticized his father and talked about his upbringing, saying that after his parents split, he moved in with his dad, which, he said, “was not a good idea.”
However, Errol told Rolling Stone, “I love my children and would readily do whatever for them.”
In a 2015 Forbes interview, Elon’s dad said he used to take his kids on trips overseas. “Their mother and I split up when they were quite young and the kids stayed with me,” he said. “I took them all over the world.”
After divorcing Elon’s mother Maye, Errol married Heide, whose daughter Jana Bezuidenhout was 4 years old at the time. Errol and Heide went on to have two daughters together before they, too, broke up.
Years later, Jana reached out to Errol following a breakup. “We were lonely, lost people,” Errol explained in a 2018 interview with The Sunday Times. “One thing led to another—you can call it God’s plan or nature’s plan.” Either way, the duo welcomed son Elliott in 2017 and then a baby girl in 2019. As Errol put it to The Sun, “The only thing we are on Earth for is to reproduce. If I could have another child I would. I can’t see any reason not to.”
Kimbal Musk and Tosca Musk, Brother and Sister
Kimbal, born in 1972, is a restauranteur. He is the founder of The Kitchen, a collective of five restaurants that source directly from local farmers, Forbes reported in 2018. He also runs a non-profit, Big-Green, that has built 200 learning gardens in schools across the U.S., the outlet said.
Tosca, born in 1974, is a filmmaker. In 2017, she founded Passionflix, a female-focused streaming service that targets the billion-dollar romance novel industry, according to Forbes.
Justine Wilson, Ex-Wife (2000-2008)
Elon and Canadian-born Justine, his college sweetheart from Queen’s University in Ontario, married in 2000. In a 2010 article she penned for Marie Claire, titled I Was a Starter Wife: Inside America’s Messiest Divorce, Justine said that while dancing at their wedding reception, Elon told her, “I am the alpha in this marriage.”
“I shrugged it off,” Wilson wrote, “just as I would later shrug off signing the postnuptial agreement, but as time went on, I learned that he was serious.”
The two welcomed their first child, son Nevada Alexander, in 2002. The baby died at age 10 weeks from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). “Nevada went down for a nap, placed on his back as always, and stopped breathing,” Justine wrote in her article.
The couple pursued IVF to conceive again and went on to welcome five more kids: 19-year-old twins Vivian and Griffin and 17-year-old triplets Kai, Saxon and Damian.
In 2008, Elon filed for divorce. They share custody of their children.
Vivian Wilson, Griffin, Kai, Damian & Saxon Musk, Kids
In a July 2022 snap shared on social media, Elon revealed he took his oldest sons to meet Pope Francis. While he was “honored” to meet the head of the Catholic church, Elon added of his ‘fit, “My suit is tragic.”
That same year, Elon’s daughter Vivian filed a petition to change her full name in accordance with her new gender identity, writing, “I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.”
Tallulah Riley, Ex-Wife (2010-2012, 2013-2016)
Elon and Tallulah—who played host greeter Angela on HBO’s Westworld—married in 2010. “It all happened very fast,” she told CBS News. “We were engaged after, I think, two weeks of knowing each other.”
The two divorced in 2012, then remarried a year later before divorcing again in 2016.
Amber Heard, Ex-Girlfriend (2017)
Elon and Amber went public with their romance in early 2017, a year after she filed for divorce from Johnny Depp and Elon ended his second marriage to his second wife Tallulah Riley. Months later, Elon and Amber called it quits.
“I just broke up with my girlfriend,” Elon told Rolling Stone at the time. “I was really in love, and it hurt bad…Well, she broke up with me more than I broke up with her, I think.”
Grimes, Ex-Girlfriend (2018-2022)
Elon and the singer dated on and off for about four years, starting in 2018. In September 2021, Elon told Page Six that he and Grimes “are, I’d say, probably semi-separated,” adding, “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. She’s staying with me now and Baby X is in the adjacent room.”
In a March 2022 interview with Vanity Fair, the singer said she and Elon “live in separate houses” and are “best friends.”
She later tweeted, “Me and E have broken up *again* since the writing of this article haha, but he’s my best friend and the love of my life, and my life and art are forever dedicated to The Mission now.”
When news broke in September 2023 that the couple share three children together, the “Crystal Ball” singer confirmed that, yes, their most recent addition Techno Mechanicus had joined son X Æ A-12, 3, and daughter Exa Dark Sideræl, 20 months.
X Æ A-Xii Musk, Son
In 2020, Elon and then-girlfriend Grimes welcomed their first child together, a son. They soon modified the spelling of his name in order to meet California’s legal guidelines, which only permit letters from the English alphabet. Switching over to roman numerals, the parents agreed to spell his name, X Æ A-Xii.
“X, the unknown variable,” Grimes explained on Twitter. “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.”
Grimes continued, “A=Archangel, my favorite song” adding a rat and sword emoji. “Metal rat.”
Exa Dark Sideræl & Techno Mechanicus Musk, Kids
In her 2022 Vanity Fair interview, Grimes revealed she and Elon privately welcomed a baby girl via surrogacy.
“Exa is a reference to the supercomputing term exaFLOPS (the ability to perform 1 quintillion floating-point operations per second),” she said. “Dark, meanwhile, is the unknown. People fear it but truly it’s the absence of photons. Dark matter is the beautiful mystery of our universe.'”
Sideræl—pronounced “sigh-deer-ee-el,” is “the true time of the universe, star time, deep space time, not our relative earth time,” and a nod to her favorite Lord of the Rings character, Galadriel, who “chooses to abdicate the ring.”
A year later, the New York Times’ Sept. 9 review of Walter Isaacson’s biography Elon Musk stated that Elon and Grimes share three children, not two as previously believed. The on-again, off-again couple at one point welcomed a child named Techno Mechanicus, nicknamed Tau, a report Grimes confirmed soon after.
“I wish I could show u how cute little Techno is,” she wrote on X, “but my priority rn is keeping my babies out of the public eye, Plz respect that at this time.”
Strider & Azure, Kids
In 2022, Business Insider published court documents that stated Elon welcomed twins with Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis in November 2021. The babies were reportedly born in Austin, Texas, where the businessman lives. He also seemingly weighed in on the report on Twitter, writing, “Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis. A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far.”
“Mark my words,” he added, “they are sadly true.”
In September 2023, a Time magazine cover story, adapted from biographer Walter Issacson’s book about Elon, revealed that their twins were named Strider and Azure.
