Last week, Grimes revealed that she’s thinking of legally changing her name, and that her decision has been encouraged — as well as partially inspired — by her new boyfriend, Elon Musk. Now in the latest chapter of This Most Unexpected Romance saga, the musician born Claire Boucher has spoken out in defense of the Space X founder over some of his more controversial business practices.
Longtime Grimes fans have been quick to point out how Musk’s recent actions conflict with the musician’s more progressive views. In particular, fans took issue with Tesla and reports that the company fired employees that were trying to unionize. In a now-deleted tweet, Boucher attempted to shut down fans’ concerns by calling those reports “fake news.”
“He has never prevented them from unionizing,” she insisted. “It’s quite literally fake news. Trust me, I’ve investigated this heavily and even visited factories.” Additionally, she claimed to “have receipts” of proof, but declined to share any of them until she has new music to share.
That didn’t stop fans from pressing Boucher — a self-described “anti-imperialist” — on her new beau’s pro-capitalist ideology. (According to one Twitter user, Grimes took the “anti-imperialist” label out of her Twitter bio just a few days before she and Musk went public.) In the face of this criticism, Boucher continued to stand up for Musk, insisting that differing views shouldn’t keep people from “hanging out.”
“I can respect a capitalist when they throw the phuck down on creating cheaper safer public transit, taking humans 2 space, movin the world into clean energy, fightin for ubi etc.,” she wrote in a series of more since-deleted tweets. “Humans w differing views on economics often hang out.”
She eventually excused herself from the online chatter to “get back to work” — presumably on that new music that could come as soon as this week — but made it a point to thank her listeners for voicing their opinions.
“That said I respect yalls commitment to social justice. We all gotta work to make the world better,, I’ll stay on my game too,” said Boucher. She mentioned repeatedly that she plans to answer further questions on these issues in an Ask Me Anything-type of forum.
