Listen to Elon Musk pronounce his baby’s name: And we thought it couldn’t get any more awkward…
You’ve probably heared by now that Tesla founder Elon Musk named his baby X Æ A-12, and well, since then the whole world has been wondering HOW DO YOU PRONOUNCE THAT?!
His girlfriend Grimes, explained more about the baby’s name in a tweet on Tuesday, clarifying that X stands for “the unknown variable,” Æ is her “elven spelling” of AI, and A-12 stands for Archangel, the internal codename of a US spy plane.
•X, the unknown variable ⚔️
•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 🤍
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(A=Archangel, my favorite song)
(⚔️🐁 metal rat)— ꧁ ༒ Gℜiꪔ⃕es ༒꧂ 🍓🐉🎀 小仙女 (@Grimezsz) May 6, 2020
Grimes also further explained that she pronounces the name X A.I., or, phonetically, “ecks aye eye.”
However, Musk has a completely different pronunciation, which he said out loud publicly for the first time on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast. When Rogan asked Elon how to pronounce the name, Musk said it’s “X Ash Archangel.”
“It’s just X, the letter X. And then the Æ is, like, pronounced ‘ash,'” Musk told Rogan. “And then A-12 is my contribution … Archangel-12, the precursor to the SR-71, coolest plane ever.”
You can watch Musk pronounce the name below, starting at the 0:34 mark: