Why Is Grimes Suing Elon Musk?

The singer, who shares three children with the tech mogul, filed a “petition to establish a parental relationship” in a California court.

Claire Boucher, also known as Grimes, is suing her ex and our unfortunate X overlord Elon Musk over parental rights. Last Friday, the singer, who shares three young children with Musk — X Æ A-Xii, Exa Dark Sideræl, and Techno Mechanicus — filed a “petition to establish a parental relationship” in a California court, according to records obtained by “Page Six.”

So what does this mean? While Grimes’s filings have been sealed, her petition is a common procedure often required to get courts to identify the legal guardians of a child with unmarried parents so that other logistics, including custody, can be hashed out, according to the San Francisco Standard. Although these types of petitions are often filed alongside demands for custody arrangements and child support, the outlet reports that Grimes has yet to request either.

Musk and Grimes began dating in 2018 and officially “semi-separated” in 2021. It was a three-year on-again, off-again relationship that the singer once beguilingly referred to as “the best internship ever.” They welcomed X Æ A-Xii in 2020, followed by daughter Exa Dark Sideræl, or “Y,” in 2021 and Techno Mechanicus — Tau for short — in 2022. Y and Tau were both born via surrogate.

In early September, Grimes claimed in a since-deleted Tweet that Musk wasn’t allowing her to see one of their sons. “Tell Shivon to unblock me and tell Elon to let me see my son or plz respond to my lawyer. I have never even been allowed to see a photo of these children until this moment, despite the situation utterly ripping my family apart,” she wrote in response to a photo that Musk’s biographer Walter Isaacson had posted of Musk with Neuralink director Shivon Zilis and their twins, born in 2021. Grimes later apologized for her response, calling it a “gut-level reaction to a thing that has been very hard for me.” Musk did not reply to Grimes’s statement and has yet to respond to her petition.