Grimes Just Revealed Her New Album Has Zero Songs About Elon Musk, and the Reason Says Everything About Her Next Chapter

For a musician whose last few years played out like a real time documentary about fame, money and the world’s loudest ex boyfriend, Grimes has finally decided she is done narrating someone else’s story. On a podcast this weekend, the 38 year old Canadian artist confirmed that her long awaited new album, Psy Opera, contains not a single song about Elon Musk. Not one. In an era when every celebrity breakup becomes an album rollout, that restraint might be the boldest move she has made yet.

The revelation came during Grimes’ appearance on the Swiftologist podcast, which aired Sunday. Asked directly whether any tracks on the new record touch her relationship with the Tesla billionaire, she shut it down completely. She explained that she simply did not want any of the new material to be about him, making it clear the omission was deliberate, not accidental.

Why the “no Elon songs” rule matters

Anyone who has followed Grimes knows why this answer is news. She and Musk were first linked in May 2018, when they walked into the Met Gala together and broke a sizable chunk of the internet. They share three children, sons X AE A-XII, now 6, and Techno Mechanicus, 4, plus daughter Exa Dark Siderael, 5. They split in 2022, and the years since have been anything but quiet: custody-adjacent spats, his habit of bringing their son to White House appearances that she said happened without her permission, and a public co parenting dynamic that never really left the spotlight.

In that context, a Psy Opera track about Musk would have been the easiest headline money could buy. Streaming algorithms reward heartbreak. Fans would have dissected every lyric for references to the breakup. She knew that. She chose the opposite. The interesting part is not just what she excluded, but why: she framed it as a question of focus, saying the personal material simply could not come first on a record about something she considers more urgent.

That is worth pausing on. Grimes has never been precious about putting her life in her art. But she has always drawn a hard line between her private life and her project, and this is her drawing it again, in permanent marker.

What Psy Opera actually is

Psy Opera is Grimes’ first album since 2020’s Miss Anthropocene, a gap of about six years that, in pop time, might as well be a geological era. It will also be her first release on her own label, Nazgul Recording LLC, which she launched after parting ways with Columbia Records. Going independent after two decades in the system is its own statement, and the rollout so far has been pure Grimes: cryptic trailers, an Instagram channel called Eve Is Online, and a concept that sits somewhere between an opera, a sermon and a software update.

The first single, Accelerando, dropped on October 8, with its video following a day later. The title nods to Charles Stross’ 2005 science fiction novel about a family navigating a world where intelligence is exploding beyond human control, which tells you a lot about where her head is. A press release for the project put the album’s scope bluntly: the AI debate, wars, a bad ex, looksmaxers, the importance of religion. Everything she witnessed, as she put it, as a woman of history during her time away from pop music.

Notably, Consequence reported that despite the AI concept, she did not use generative software to write or produce the new songs. The machines are the subject, not the songwriter. That distinction matters to Grimes, and it will matter to the fans who have argued about AI music since she started experimenting with it.

The two part plan, and the honest part about regrets

Here is where the album gets genuinely interesting. Grimes told the podcast that Psy Opera is planned in two parts. The first part is the AI inspired material, the big ideas, the mirror she keeps describing. The second part, in her words, will be completely personal, all emotion, the human side of the ledger.

She also admitted something rare for a rollout interview: regret about the balance. She said she wished she had put a bit more of the emotions on one side and a bit more of the computer on the other. It is a refreshingly unguarded thing to say about an album that is not even out yet, and it reframes the “no Elon songs” news. The personal half of this story still exists. It is just being saved for part two, and she is not letting it bleed into part one.

That sequencing feels deliberate. Lead with the ideas, follow with the heart. It is the opposite of the confessional pop playbook, where the breakup single comes first and everything else is a footnote.

Accelerando and the slow road back

If you have not kept up, Grimes has been quietly building toward this moment all year. In 2023 she released more than 200 royalty free GrimesAI voice models and offered 50 percent royalties to anyone who made a successful AI generated song with her voice. In 2024 she appeared on a PBS series about the future and argued that AI gives musicians an opportunity, because when everyone has professional grade tools, the real talent rises to the top. Last year she dropped the AI themed track Artificial Angels, whose video had her dancing with an AI avatar that looked an awful lot like Grok’s Ani, the chatbot avatar developed by her ex’s company. Subtle, she was not.

The release of Accelerando marks the first concrete music of this new chapter, and then came the plot twist nobody predicted: Musk himself showed up in her comments. According to Primetimer, the billionaire replied to her announcement with a single word, “Congratulations.” No follow up, no subtext anyone can prove, just that. It is the smallest possible gesture between two people with the loudest possible history, and the internet, naturally, lost its mind anyway.

The AI gospel according to Grimes

Asked what “AI inspired” even means for the record, Grimes reached for a metaphor that is very on brand for her. She described AI as a mirror, and looking inward at what it shows us about ourselves. That framing, AI as a tool for self examination rather than a replacement for artists, has been her thesis for years now, and Psy Opera looks like its fullest expression.

This is the thread that makes the Musk omission make sense. If the album is about holding a mirror up to humanity, then centering it on one man, even the most famous man in her life, would shrink the whole thing. She is trying to write about the species, not the ex. Whether that works as pop music is the open question, but as an artistic position, it is coherent, ambitious, and very Grimes.

Six years is a long time to be quiet in pop. The comeback plan is a two part AI opera on her own label, no breakup ballads, no tabloid lyrics, and a former partner who limits himself to a one word congratulation. Whatever Psy Opera turns out to be, the rollout alone has been a masterclass in controlling your own narrative. The music, expected sometime in 2027, will tell us whether the gamble pays off.

Further reading

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Sources: JustJared report on the podcast interview; Consequence album announcement on Accelerando and Psy Opera details.