If you caught that MSN story alleging that Grimes took to Twitter on Oct 31 to publicly ask ex-boyfriend Elon Musk to pay child support, uncatch it. It may have waded its way to the top of the Google Newscharts, but it’s complete and total BS.
The article, first published by gossip site Inquisitr and subsequently picked up by MSN and distributed on its immense news network, is based on a screenshot of a so-called Grimes tweet. In the screenshot, the musician can be seen “responding” to a Musk post asking Twitter users to start coughing up eight dollars per month for a blue verification check, requesting that her ex pay up on his end, too — by providing child support for their shared kids.
This exchange, however, was completely fake. The screenshot is obviously doctored and marked as fake by Twitter, and was even circulated by a clearly marked parody account. Reviewing Grimes’ feed, it never appeared there. But the Inquisitr writer — whose byline, in another red flag, simply reads “chisom,” with no last name, while their bio is riddled with typos — treated the fake exchange as very real, and MSN clearly didn’t take the time to apply any common sense scrutiny.
Extremely Questionable
Futurism reached out to both Inquisitr and MSN for comment, as well as reporting the story to MSN via its mechanism for flagging misinformation, but neither outlet responded.
Look, we get that Inquisitr isn’t exactly the most trustworthy content mill out there. But MSN, which is very widely circulated, promises on its site that it leverages “human oversight to ensure that the content we show aligns with our values and that crucial information features prominently in our experiences.” Unless their standards are way, way lower than we imagined, this slip-up is a glaring contradiction to that promise.
If there’s any lesson, here? Media literacy is important. Don’t believe everything you read on the internet, kids.
Elon Musk believes his former girlfriend Grimes is ‘so perfect she must be a figment of his imagination’
In the latest slice of bizarre from the private life of Elon Musk, the tech titan believes that ex-girlfriend Grimes is so perfect that she must be a simulation he created in his mind, according to a new BBC documentary.
In the latest slice of bizarre from the private life of Elon Musk, the tech titan believes that ex-girlfriend Grimes is so perfect that she must be a simulation he created in his mind, according to a new BBC documentary.
The same documentary, called The Elon Musk Show, then goes on to say that Grimes actually agrees with the theory.
The Canadian singer was already 31 when she met Musk but those three decades in existence appear not to have swayed her too much when considering the theory.
Vanity Fair journalist Devin Gordon says that Grimes, real name Claire Boucher, shared with him Musk’s mind-bending theory in a recent interview.
‘She told me repeatedly that Musk has this theory of her that she’s not real , that she’s a simulation who was created by him and exists in his cerebral cortex as sort of the perfect companion to him,’ he says.
‘Which sounds a little crаzy and maybe even a little crееpy, except, she agrees with it. She said she does feel like this simulation which was perfectly created for him.’
Musk has flirted before with the philosophical concept that our reality – and all of us in it – is just a simulation in a computer somewhere in another reality that we can never access or perceive – known as the ‘simulation theory’.
‘If you assume any rate of improvement at all, games will eventually be indistinguishable from reality,’ Musk said on the Joe Rogan Experience in 2018, before concluding: ‘We’re most likely in a simulation.’
Grimes and Elon Musk make their first public appearance together Met Gala in 2018
They have two children together: Their first child, a son named X Æ A-Xii was born in May 2020, and he was followed by a daughter, Exa Dark Sideræl via surrogate in 2021
Canadian dream pop star Grimes – real name Claire Boucher – was featured as a subject in a three-part BBC documentary called The Elon Musk Show. This picture is taken from one of her music videos
The Tesla mogul and the dream pop star had met originally over Twitter, when the duo enjoyed a tech-based joke, and they made their first public appearance together at the Met Gala in 2018.
‘They’ve been seeing each other but have been keeping their relationship under the radar,’ a source said at the time.
Musk had just emerged from a tryst with Amber Heard and and in Boucher he found a kindred spirit whose music was quite tech-based and they shared an interest in technology, fantasy and dark theories.
Their first child, a son named X Æ A-Xii was born in May 2020, and he was followed by a daughter, Exa Dark Sideræl via surrogate in 2021.
The couple broke up in 2021 after three years and two children together, with the billionaire citing his work with Tesla and SpaceX as keeping him in Texas and too busy to be with Boucher who was mainly in LA.
News that they celebrity duo had split began to emerge in 2021, and in September that year Musk made the announcement.
‘We are semi-separated but still love each other, see each other frequently and are on great terms,’ Musk said.
The SpaceX and Tesla CEO explained, ‘It’s mostly that my work at SpaceX and Tesla requires me to be primarily in Texas or travelling overseas and her work is primarily in LA. She’s staying with me now and Baby X is in the adjacent room.’
The Elon Musk Show is a three part documentary which began this week and features glossy interviews with former colleagues and family members, including mum Maye.
Musk’s private life has long been highly unorthodox. He has ten children in total between three mothers, with the oldest being 18-year-old twins.
The couple broke up in 2021 after three years and two children together, with the billionaire citing his work with Tesla and SpaceX as keeping him in Texas and too busy to be with Boucher who was mainly in LA.
He also has a difficult relationship with his raconteur father, who is in a relationship with Musk’s own step-sister whom his father raised himself.
Errol Musk геᴠеаled that he had a second unplanned child with 35-year-old Jana Bezuidenhout three years ago in 2019, making the children both Musk’s step nieces and step-sisters.
Elon Musk reportedly went ‘berserk’ when he found out and his relationship with his father has been even more strained ever since.
Although Errol denies having a bad relationship with his billionaire son, Elon has previously described his engineer father as ‘evil’ and a ‘terrible human being.’
However, Musk is no stranger to controversial and unorthodox parenthood himself, with court documents revealing that the tech billionaire quietly had twins with one of his top executives in November, weeks before he welcomed a child with Grimes.
The Tesla CEO reportedly had twins with Shivon Zilis, 36, the director of operations at Musk’s brain-machine interface company Neuralink.
Musk’s personal life has always been complicated since the billionaire left behind a troubled childhood in South Africa.
He experienced difficulties as a child thanks to his rocky relationship with his father and being severely bullied at school.
It got so bad that he was once hospitalised after his bullies pushed him down a set of stairs.
But since moving to the US, Musk has had a complicated love life that includes three marriages and three divorces, including two of each with the same woman, and seven children from two long-term romances.
He and his first wife, Justine Wilson, now 49, met while they were both attending Queen’s University, and they tied the knot in 2000 and went on to have six kids. THey divorced in 2008.
Amber Heard and Elon Musk dated in 2016-2017 (pictured in 2017) but could not make it work due to scheduling conflicts
Shivon Zilis, 36, pictured, one of the top executives at Elon Musk’s company Neuralink, welcomed twins with the Tesla CEO November last year, court documents геᴠеаled
Errol Musk, the father of Elon Musk, reportedly has a bad relationship with his billionaire son
In April, one of his sons with Justine, Xavier Musk, 18, filed court documents seeking to legally change their gender from male to female and lose their last name, stating: ‘I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.’
Following his split from Wilson, Musk began dating British star Talulah Riley.
Riley, now 36 – who was a vιrgin when she began dating Musk in 2008 – first tied the knot with the Tesla architect in 2010.
They divorced in 2012, got re-married, and divorced again in 2016. The couple did not have any children.
Musk dated actress Amber Heard, 35, for several months in late 2016 and early 2017, after he reportedly pursued her for many years.
Heard’s ex-husband, Johnny Depp, later accused Heard of cheating on him with Musk while they were still married, but both Musk and Heard denied the affair.
And then Musk met Grimes in 2018.