In the separate contagion that has spread solely between Kanye West and Elon Musk, the latter has also been embroiled in some Twitter drama with his significant other (though not wife, which is good in terms of Grimes being able to escape more easily), after tweeting, “Pronouns suck.” Grimes was quick to respond with, “I love you but please turn off ur phone or give me a dall [meaning call, of course]. I cannot support hate. Please stop this.” Up until that point, Grimes hadn’t tweeted anything since July 13th, and perhaps realizing all of the sudden just how public this dispute was going to get, she deleted her July 25th plea to Elon, who himself did not delete the “pronouns suck” declaration.
Whether or not the sentiment truly is aimed at trans or non-binary people, the fact that Musk could be so oblivious and unconcerned with the feelings of others is just another apex of white male privilege. Even Grimes can see that through her postpartum haze, hence her immediate reaction. Unfortunately for Musk’s precious image, this publicized tiff with her came on the heels of a New York Times puff piece in which he proudly touted his 1950s view on parenting with, “Grimes has a much bigger role than me right now. When the kid gets older, there will be more of a role for me.” Well alright then, Ricky Ricardo, just let little Lucita do all the shit smearing and ass wiping so she can set the tone for how your whole life has been lived with your latest product, X Æ A-Xii.
That Musk could even have the gumption to say such a thing without thinking twice about how it comes across from the view of blatant sexism further iterates the bubble of wealth he inhabits, where no one told him that things have changed on the outside world–that, gasp, gender roles have been mélangé. This entails, among other advancements, that, goodness gracious, men help with functions women were once deemed entirely responsible for, including child care.
But no, Musk is of the “I’ll teach my son to play catch” camp with comments referring to what he’ll do in the future to help raise X Æ A-Xii (an oxymoron, for “rearing” happens from the moment a baby is born), shrugging, “I think just doing what I’ve done with my other kids. If I have a trip for Tesla to China, for example, I’ll bring the kids with me and we’ll go see the Great Wall, or we took the bullet train from Beijing to Xian and saw the Terracotta Warriors.” Wow, Elon, sounds like the height of engaged interest rather than a rote passing on of privilege. Whether or not the pronouns thing came up in terms of discussing how X Æ A-Xii might be referred to is unclear, but what remains crystal is the fact that Musk is living in his own alternate version of what “the future” should be, in that it seems to heavily incorporate elements of the nineteenth century. That Grimes’ entire image has been predicated on being a futuristic warrior goddess fighting for one’s mind to be uploaded to the proverbial cloud is in direct contrast to the manner Elon has now rendered her.
Grimes might be going along with the Elon’s “rosy” portrait of her as a happy servant doing the bidding of their child, but one reckons that, if her open protest against him (even if erased) was an augury, she might be seriously reconsidering any intentions she ever had of marrying him. Which, if Kim Kardashian West is an indication, might be in her best interest in terms of not legally tying herself to someone so overtly unhinged and narcissistic (cash cow be damned). And oh yeah, a complete emblem of douche baggery.
To that end, Musk soon after tweeted, in typical modern fuckboy fashion, what a “great song” Nirvana’s “Lithium” is. As if he’s ever known Kurt Cobain-level pain in his life. Unless, of course, he only likes the song because it’s what he plays for Yatesian flair when he watches Grimes clean up the nursery…via the parlor wall he has installed inside his mind. For we all know he’s in his own separate echo chamber within the compound, not observing her IRL. Ironically, despite Elon’s overt comparability to a supervillain trying to signal the end of humanity, he insisted, “I think babies are super cool and really people need to have more babies because, it sounds obvious, but if people don’t have enough babies, humanity will disappear.”
It seems that’s what both Elon and Grimes have been gunning for all this time, particularly with Grimes trumpeting the abilities of AI and how it will soon signal the end of human art. X Æ A-Xii appeared also to be part of that first step into the half-human, half-robot transitional phase and, yet, with Grimes portrayed in this light, it’s hard to see much in the way of either of them being champions for “progress.” Instead, rather than adhering to “the future is femmebot,” it would be more like, “The future is continued misogyny.”
