Tragic Details About Elon Musk And Grimes' Custody Battle

Even ordinary custody battles are notoriously difficult and heartbreaking — but when the richest man in the world goes head-to-head with his indie pop star ex-partner, the devastation can only be more intense. The legal battle between the pair has been bitter and tragic since Elon Musk, who shares three children with the Canadian artist Grimes, née Claire Elise Boucher, initiated a custody dispute in September 2023.

The details of the case were sealed to the public and the press was barred from the August 2024 courtroom where a custody agreement was ultimately finalized. Both parties have been largely discreet about the conflict. Still, leaked information, along with some rare comments from Grimes — including a recent and revealing social media post — have hinted at the extensive battle that played out between the two notoriously quirky figures. Today, it seems Grimes and Musk share custody of their three children — X Æ A-Xii, Exa Dark Sideræl, and Techno Mechanicus. But Grimes has hinted that there's still plenty of animosity and the ramifications of the vicious legal fight are likely to linger.

Elon Musk's relationship with Grimes lasted for four years, from 2018 to 2022. The pair made their public debut on the red carpet at the 2018 Met Gala after rumors had swirled online about their involvement. At first, the misfit electronic musician, who has long been famous for her sci-fi influences and anti-pop star aesthetics, seemed like a dream match for the SpaceX and Tesla CEO. Like Grimes, Musk's lifestyle is famously unconventional. Though the pair were off and on, they seemed particularly well-suited after the birth of their first son, for whom they selected the unusual, sci-fi-coded name X Æ A-Xii.

But Grimes reports her former partner became someone completely foreign to her during their lengthy legal dispute. She posted to X, formerly Twitter, in November 2024 with an update about her music projects, with a thread that included some details about her battle with Musk. In the full X post, she wrote that she's spent a year, "fighting and detaching from the love of my life as he becomes unrecognizable to me." Perhaps Grimes was privy to a new side of Musk once lawyers became involved. However, the tech billionaire has undergone a drastic public change in recent years, including a pivot toward a close relationship with Donald Trump's presidential campaign. So while Grimes' post hints at a change, it's unclear whether she was speaking about his private or public life.

Elon Musk filed a custody lawsuit in September 2023, more than a year after the couple's split in March 2022. Musk's lawsuit aimed to "establish the parent-child" relationship with the children; Grimes filed in response, suing for primary physical custody and joint legal custody.

Almost immediately, the legal battle seemed fraught. The same day Musk filed, Grimes addressed the billionaire on X in a seemingly desperate post that read: "let me see my son or plz respond to my lawyer." She deleted the post almost immediately.

Early on, Musk and Grimes fought over whether the suit would be heard in California or Musk's new home state of Texas. It appears Musk won this part of the legal fight, as the case was ultimately resolved in August 2024 in Austin, Texas — nearly a year after Musk's initial filing. As part of her lengthy X post, Grimes expressed frustration over the venue, describing Texas as "a state with terrible mothers rights."

As recently as April 2024, Grimes and Musk seemed to have a cordial relationship. The former couple had a friendly exchange on X, leading observers to believe that their legal case — thought sealed — was proceeding without any undue conflict.

But just months later, Grimes' mother, Sandy Garossino, took to X, revealing that the custody dispute was contentious. In the now-deleted thread, she wrote, "I'm writing here as the only way I have to reach you. As you know, my 93 year old mother is now at end-of-life palliative care. She yearns to see and hold Claire's children one last time. Especially the youngest, whom she has not yet met," according to People. She continued, "I am alarmed to learn that the children cannot come as you are withholding them and their needed passport documents from Claire."

Since then, Grimes has revealed that she didn't see her son for five months during the custody battle, and hinted at the difficulty of this parent-child separation. As part of her longer X thread, she wrote, "I didn't see one of my babies for 5 months." Fans have speculated she is referring to her oldest child with Musk, their son X, who has been seen on several recent high-profile trips with Musk, including to the Paris Olympics and at Mar-a-Lago on election night.

Billionaire Elon Musk is famously the wealthiest man in the world, and Grimes claims she struggled to compete with his massive material resources during their legal battle. In the same November thread on X, she described herself as trapped in a fight "with a fraction of his resources (or iq/ strategy experience)." Musk's net worth is roughly $315 billion, while Grimes' net worth is allegedly closer to $10 million.

In her long X post, Grimes took the opportunity to update fans on why she hasn't produced new music in recent years. She wrote that she's struggled to be creatively productive because "the threat of losing ur kids while going bankrupt fighting for them is not very conducive to creative thoughts." She wrote, "I just slept and cried every minute I wasn't explicitly fighting for my kids."

Presumably, a legal battle against a tech billionaire has strained Grimes' assets and placed her at a disadvantage in the custody dispute.

Finally, Grimes' lengthy X update revealed that her artistic persona has been leveraged against her during the legal battle. She reports "having my instagram posts and modeling used as reasons I shouldn't have my kids," suggesting that Elon Musk's legal team has turned to her social media to source evidence she is an unfit mother.

Still, Grimes' seemed happy on the other side of the custody battle. Her X post goes on to read, "I'm grateful for every bullet I caught. Cuz I feel on top of the world right now. And everything that used to give me anxiety feels like child's play after all this." She appears to have arrived in a new era of creative productivity. Musk has so far been silent on the dispute and its outcome. However, he, likewise, seems to be determined to move forward into his own new era, assuming his new role in the incoming Trump political administration, as president-elect Donald Trump named him to the head of a new Department of Government Efficiency.