“I don’t want to hear any more mess about our names, okay?” Goldberg said after Behar expressed shock over Musk and pop star Grimes naming their son X Æ A-Xii.


ABC; JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Whoopi Goldberg on ‘The View’ ; Elon Musk with his son, X, at the White House

X Æ A-Xii is not, in fact, a line of text that’s part of the nuclear codes for The Whoopi Goldberg War Room™, but rather the name of controversial presidential influencer Elon Musk’s son with pop star Grimes, as The View cohosts came to terms with on Wednesday morning’s live show.

Goldberg kicked off the episode by introducing a Hot Topic concerning Musk bringing his 4-year-old son to a recent White House press conference alongside Donald Trump — and the reveal of the child’s name stunned fellow panelist Joy Behar.

“So, yesterday, Elon Musk took his son X…” Goldberg began, with Behar cutting in to ask, “X?”

Goldberg paused while the show’s studio audience laughed. “I did not name the child,” Goldberg said. “I don’t want to hear any more mess about our names, okay?”

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Cohost Sunny Hostin smiled in reaction to the quip, as many of her detractors have repeatedly referenced the fact that Hostin uses her nickname versus her real name, Asunción, for professional matters.

“Anyway, he took little X,” Goldberg continued, while Behar again cut in, to quip, “And little Instagram!”

“He doesn’t own Instagram,” Goldberg observed. “He just took little X with him to a press conference in the Oval Office to defend himself against critics who say he should not have the power to gut [a] federal agency.”

Later in the broadcast, Behar called X “adorable,” though the panel had harsh words for X’s father amid Trump’s partnership with the billionaire.


Andrew Harnik/Getty Elon Musk, X, and Donald Trump at the White House

Following the birth of X, Grimes, who split with Musk in 2021, addressed the name of the couple’s child and explained their intention behind it.

“X” represents the “unknowable variable,” she wrote, while “Æ” stood in for her “elven spelling” of artificial intelligence and/or love, while “A-12” was the couple’s favorite aircraft.

When it comes to View cohosts, Hostin isn’t the only star who goes by something other than her birth name. Goldberg, who was born Caryn Elaine Johnson, established her stand-up comedy stage name with inspiration from a whoopee cushion, while Behar recently revealed that her real name, Josephine Victoria Occhiuto, was given to her in honor of her Italian grandmother who once threatened to kill herself and her own children.

The View airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET/PT on ABC.