As Elon Musk and Grimes semi-separate with no hard feelings, the world’s second richest person owes humankind a relationship column | The Star

2022-07-31 23:01:36 By : Ms. Jasmine Fan

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It’s time for Elon Musk to forget space travel, electric cars, tunnels, hyperloops, AI, cryptocurrency and weed so he can fulfil his natural calling: relationship columnist.

But let’s start at the beginning, which is the end of the billionaire’s latest romance. On Friday, Page Six broke the news that Musk and Canadian singer Grimes were boarding a SpaceX rocket ship and heading to Planet Splitsville. The eccentric couple — in every photo I’ve seen, they look like they were sent from the future to secretly teach quantum physics to Nespresso machines before robots enslave humanity — started dating in 2018, not long after the total eclipse of Lunar Saros 124.

If you think that’s a coincidence, read Jungian Synchronicity or watch Act 3 of “The Girl From Petrovka.” Musk and Grimes were meant to be — until they weren’t.

Now this union is as discontinued as the original Tesla Roadster.

As Musk told Page Six of his breakup with Grimes: “We are semi-separated but still love each other, see each other frequently and are on great terms.”

The “love each other” is not for anyone to dispute. The “see each other frequently” also makes perfect sense since they now have a baby. Last year, Musk and Grimes, born in Vancouver as Claire Boucher, welcomed a son they named Bill Musk.

My mistake. They named their son X Æ A-Xii. And if that moniker is as baffling as white linen at a Burger King, you have obviously never listened to “Archangel” while contemplating anime and the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird as a weapon of gentle war.

But what really perked up my ears was Musk’s use of “semi-separated.”

What exactly does that mean? Not sure. But we can probably safely file it into the same lexicon folder as “conscious uncoupling,” the term Gwyneth Paltrow gave the world after her split with Chris Martin. The key is in the ambiguity.

“Semi” conveys a grey zone.

Semi-detached house. Semi-truck. Semi-retired. Semi-pro. Semi-sweet chocolate. Semi-formal. Semi-hermetic compressor. Semi-jocular. I once met a semi-nomad near Darjeeling and, as far as I could tell, he just couldn’t bother settling down.

What’s fascinating about Musk is that he keeps settling and unsettling down.

And he keeps doing so in a haze of serenity.

Musk has been married and divorced three times, twice to Talulah Riley. He has six children, enough to colonize Mars. He has dated many celebrities, including Amber Heard. As the world’s second richest person, my guess is there is no shortage of love interests who would very much like to become the next Mrs. Elon Musk and gleefully name their future offspring 3.1415926535 or E=mc2.

We already know Musk is a super-genius, arguably the smartest person alive. But given his latest breakup, I don’t care about Milky Way trajectories or lithium-nickel-cobalt-aluminum batteries or neural brain-machine interfaces. I want him to provide a detailed blueprint of everything he knows about love and life.

I want Elon Musk to become a relationship columnist.

When celebrities separate — and it’s never qualified as “semi” — the results are unpleasant. One day, two A-listers are madly in love. The next, they are accusing one another of emotional abuse or cheating with the nanny. Celebrity breakups are ugly. I can tell you right now, when Machine Gun Kelly and Megan Fox get sick of each other — and that’s a definite when, not if — the tabloids will slip into frenzy mode as both camps leak unflattering scoops about how and why it all went sideways.

But Musk’s breakups are as scandalous as a yard sale. No one cares.

He’s not getting soul mates to sign NDAs. Musk is one of the greatest innovators in history and yet, on the domestic front, he’s a screw-up. But a screw-up that doesn’t seem to bother anyone, especially the women he leaves behind. And that’s why he should forget all his lofty ambitions and start a relationship column: “Dear Elon.”

Forget flame-throwers or meme-trolling or contrarian takes on public health.

What the men of this muddled world need now from Musk is advice.

Sir, do you help with the laundry and dishes? Are you a good listener? Do you watch rom-coms and fire up the barbecue at least twice a week? How do you strike a work-life balance when it seems you spend about 92 hours per human day in the office? How is it that you are on track to break Zsa Zsa Gabor’s marriage record and yet no former partner has ever issued one hostile word against you?

Do you remember birthdays and anniversaries? Can you spend as long feigning interest in disjointed tales of your loved one’s day as you did analyzing Peter Thiel’s “Zero to One”? Are you good with pets? Do you remember to put the toilet seat down? Do you waste a lot of time watching sports in your underwear? And if not, why not?

Elon Musk and Grimes are now semi-separated. Or maybe they’ll semi-reunite.

All we know for sure is he is not telling us what he knows about relationships.

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