Elon Musk the Dadfluencer? The Billionaire Is Leveraging His Son to Rebrand Himself as a Father Figure
Read award-winning journalist Taylor Lorenz's new column, Network Effect, exclusively for Zeteo.
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- Mehdi
On Tuesday afternoon, as Elon Musk met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, his 4-year-old son, X Æ known as “X,” scrambled around at his knees. Trump introduced the child, saying, “This is X, and he’s a great guy. High IQ.” X proceeded to whisper inaudible phrases, pick his nose, and zone out.
Shortly after the appearance, X's mother, Claire Elise Boucher, known as Grimes, responded in frustration. "He should not be in public like this," she tweeted. Despite Boucher's protests, the story was quickly packaged across social media as a heartfelt "father-son moment."
"Say what you like about Elon Musk but as a dad I think there is something rather wonderful about him speaking in the Oval Office with his son on his shoulders," one X user with over 63,000 followers tweeted.
"Father’s Love ❤️ doesn’t have to be judged by money," another user tweeted alongside a photo of X on Musk's shoulders. "Elon Musk is a great father."
The Oval Office incident was just Musk's latest attempt to rebrand himself from a ruthless, calculating billionaire to a down-home family man. Musk has done this by mimicking the behavior and tactics of parenting influencers, who leverage their children to build and shape their public image and foster a deeper loyalty from their audience. "Kids change the way that your brand is seen," said Fortesa Latifi, author of the forthcoming book, Like, Follow, Subscribe, about the family influencing industry.
“Musk, like any influencer, knows the power of parasocial relationships," said Brendan Gahan, co-founder of Creator Authority, an influencer marketing agency. "But so far, he's predominantly cultivated that among a young male audience. Using his son provides a platform to build those parasocial relationships with a much wider demographic of older people and women."
Over the past year, Musk's son X has been a fixture alongside the billionaire. Musk brought X to Twitter’s San Francisco offices after closing his $44 billion deal to buy the company. His son has accompanied his father to meetings on Capitol Hill, summits with world leaders, tours of Tesla factories, and the Super Bowl. On election night, Musk carried X into Mar-a-Lago with the toddler perched on his shoulders, and his son was even included in the Trump family's victory photo. It's hard to find a recent public appearance by Musk that his son has not attended.
Despite Boucher's repeated insistence that X not be forced into the public eye, Musk has sought to leverage their son to rebrand himself as the ultimate father and family man. He is doing what many parenting influencers do: using their children to soften their public image, appeal to a right-wing audience, and shield themselves from criticism.