Elon Musk May Have Named His Son After a ‘60s Spy Plane: X Æ A-12

In between tweeting about fascism and Tesla share price being too high, and sending the stock crashing, he just became a father for the sixth time.

On May 5, Elon Musk and his girlfriend of two years, Canadian singer Grimes, welcomed their first child together: a baby boy. Musk never openly confirmed the pregnancy or even that the baby is his, but he did go on Twitter to announce that the baby and mother were fine after delivery.

And then, as it usually happens with Musk, things took a turn for the strange. To inquiring fans, Musk revealed that the baby was a boy and, of course, "cute as a button." He also shared a couple of photos, one of the baby with a tattoo filter, joking that it's never too early for some ink, and another of himself in an Occupy Mars tee, holding the newborn.

Asked about the name, Musk said the boy would be called X Æ A-12. Not Influenza, as previous reports had claimed, but X Æ A-12 Musk. Of all the celebrity names, this is perhaps the strangest and most puzzling, and given the strange names celebrities come up for their kids, that's saying a lot.

According to pundits, the name shouldn't come as much of a surprise for Musk, since it's probably inspired by a '60s spy plane built for the CIA that came close to the edge of space. Theories on how the name is pronounced or what it means exactly abound, but this is the consensus right now: X is either the Greek letter chi or the X in SpaceX, Æ is the Ash diphthong or stands for "After Earth," while A-12 is a reference to the 1960s Lockheed A-12 aircraft, codenamed Archangel or Cygnus.

That still doesn't solve the riddle of the name. Some say the child is called Sascha 12 or X Ash Archangel, or Chi Ash Archangel, while some choose to crack jokes instead of solving the mystery. Popular right now are "pronounced 'Musk' because the X Æ A-12 is silent" and various riffs on "Musk didn't know what to choose so he just smashed all keys on the keyboard," along with cracks on how bullied the boy will be when he grows up.