‘Weird and uncomfortable’: Big problem with cute photograph of Elon Musk’s son

Elon Musk’s four-year-old son Lil X has become a Washington star, even hanging out with the president, but the full picture is unsettling.

OPINION

There are only two things that John F Kennedy and Donald Trump have in common: The same hulking office desk, and the identical belief that their wedding vows were vague suggestions they only half listened to rather than firm promises.

But now, they have another – both men are two of the few American presidents who have moved a preschooler into the White House.

Mr Trump’s re-election brought with it the installation in Washington of Elon Musk, who is taking a sabbatical from earning squillions to do the president’s bureaucratic work via the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

And wherever Mr Musk goes, his four-year-old son X Æ A-12, who goes by Lil X, goes too, including places normally off limits for people who still have enforceable nap times.

Places like a Tucker Carlson interview, hanging out with right-wing Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the directors of NASA or a funsy day out at MAGA-palooza, the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Lil X, whose mother is the singer Grimes, real name Claire Boucher, has become a permanent fixture in Washington and by default, is in Mr Trump’s orbit, appearing with his father and the president in recent weeks in the Oval Office, the front driveway of the White House and boarding Marine One.

Elon Musk’s son Lil X has become a White House fixture. Picture: Jim Watson/AFP

This trio has to make for the strangest three amigos in history. Picture: Jim Watson/AFP

This trio has to make for the strangest three amigos in history, though at least two of them, I’m guessing, demand an afternoon Dunkaroo.

But have you ever stopped to wonder why?

Mr Musk has 14 children – why is he only ever seen with one of his football-team-plus-reserves number of progeny?

Why don’t we see him rotating his kids in and out like clean T-shirts?

Is it because Lil X is simply The Chosen One?

No.

It’s because actually, he is The Only One.

Is Lil X simply The Chosen One? Picture: Brendan Smialowski/AFP

The only one, that is, who can and will be seen in public so excessively with their father.

To sound horribly Muskian, given the centibillionaire has nine sons and four daughters, he’s not getting much of a return on investment on his procreative energies.

Here’s why.

To start, there are the five children he shares with author Justine Wilson. (Their first son Nevada died of SIDS in 2002).

It does appear he is The Only One. Picture: Pool via AP

Next, twins Vivian and Griffin, born in 2004. In 2022, Vivian came out as transgender, changing her surname to her mother’s and saying in a court filing “I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form”.

These days, Vivian is an outspoken – and hilarious – baiter of her estranged father.

One down, 13 to go.

Griffin is only very occasionally seen with Mr Musk – for example, this fleeting glance of him with his dad at an event in Miami for celebrity hotspot restaurant Carbone in May, 2024.

That’s my eldest son, Griffin, who was with me at the event

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 5, 2024

Next up we have triplets Kai, Saxon and Damian, born in 2006 who, like their older brother, have little interest in appearing in public with their father, aside from in 2022 when he took them along for the ultimate lads road trip – to meet the Pope.

Honored to meet @Pontifex yesterday pic.twitter.com/sLZY8mAQtd

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 2, 2022

Not a huge amount is known about the boys, however, Walter Isaacson’s influential 2023 biography Elon Musk reveals that Damian is a classical music prodigy who excelled in maths and physics and who is “brighter” than Mr Musk, according to Elon’s own mother, Maye Musk.

Per Isaacson, Damian became a vegetarian at age eight “to decrease my carbon footprint”.

That alone rules him out for ever being Mr Musk’s White House plus-one, given the president’s view that even chicken is suspiciously vegetable-adjacent.

So we have a daughter who wants nothing to do with the Muskinator and four sons who have zero appetite for the spotlight.

And that was where things stood until 2020, with it looking like the Tesla boss and caffeine-free Diet Coke’s number one hype man was done with adding to his brood.

Au contraire.

Musk’s oldest daughter Vivian Wilson described him as ‘cold’. Picture: Supplied

Just hanging at the White House. Picture: Jim Watson/AFP

In the next five years, Mr Musk would have eight more children with four mothers in rapid-fire succession.

He had Lil X with Grimes in May 2020.

He had twins Strider and Azure with Shivon Zilis, one of his Neuralink company’s execs, in November 2021.

A month later in December 2021 came Exa Dark Sideræl Musk with Grimes.

Then in June 2022, son Techno Mechanicus, again with Grimes, was born via a surrogate.

In March 2024 came daughter Arcadia, also with Ms Zilis.

Conservative influencer Ashley St Clair has claimed she gave birth to Mr Musk’s eighth son in September 2024, while at some stage this year came another boy, named Seldon Lycurgus, with Ms Zillis.

You see the issue here.

Musk had Lil X with Grimes in May 2020. Picture: Angela Weiss/AFP

Of Mr Musk’s 14 children, they either hate him, have no desire to be dragged around by their father as part humanising accessory, part PR prop, or have not yet learnt to sit up.

All, that is, aside from Lil X.

Added to which, Mr Musk clearly feels a unique connection with the boy.

Even as a baby, X “calmed and beguiled Musk, who craved his presence”, Issaccson has written.

“He took X everywhere.”

Musk holds his son alongside his mother, Maye Musk, after stepping off Marine One in March. Picture: Tierney L Cross/AFP

“I think E is really seeing him as a protégé,” Grimes told the biographer.

Which might be kind of sweet, if Mr Musk’s actual fathering skills were not on par with Mr Trump’s enthusiasm for experimental LGBT+ interpretative dance.

Mr Musk’s oldest daughter Vivian Wilson, in an interview with NBC news last year, described him as “cold”, “very quick to anger” and “uncaring and narcissistic”.

She recounted: “I was in fourth grade. We went on this road trip that I didn’t know was actually just an advertisement for one of the cars — I don’t remember which one — and he was constantly yelling at me viciously because my voice was too high. It was cruel.”

It is also impossible to get away from the fact that Mr Musk’s constant toting of Lil X and all of his performative parenting is plain old weird and uncomfortable to watch.

Mr Musk’s constant toting of Lil X and all of his performative parenting is plain old weird and uncomfortable to watch. Picture: Instagram/supplied

He has described Lil X as “my emotional support human”, which is seven flavours of deeply unhealthy bordering on the disturbing. (X’s future raft of therapists are really going to have some rich material to work with).

Musk has described Lil X as ‘my emotional support human’. Picture: Pool via AP

His status as Mr Musk’s little princeling slash personal crutch slash binkie in human form can hardly be doing him any sort of psychological favours.

Let us, however, count small mercies here, because it’s not for a lack of trying that Mr Musk does not have more kids.

At a 2023 dinner party, he reportedly offered to donate his sperm to a couple he hardly knew. Pass the potatoes, would you?

Last year, Taylor Swift came out behind Kamala Harris, referring to herself as a “childless cat lady”.

According to the New York Times, Mr Musk was only “half joking” when he immediately offered to have a child with her. Christ alive.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles

Originally published as ‘Weird and uncomfortable’: Big problem with cute photograph of Elon Musk’s son