Singer Grimes has reportedly been quietly dating her Met Gala date Elon Musk after meeting him online a month ago.
The Canadian musician and Space X founder shocked onlookers when they made their first red carpet appearance as a couple at the Museum of Metropolitan Art's annual Met Gala in New York on Monday (07May18).
The pair coordinated their outfits by both going with black and white ensembles - Grimes, real name Claire Boucher, wore a white corset-style bodice with black tutu and train and goth-style lace-up boots, while Elon wore a white tuxedo jacket and shirt with black trousers.
Ahead of the gala, New York Post gossip column Page Six revealed they would be stepping out publicly together for the first time, after meeting online a month earlier.
According to an insider, the billionaire, who previously dated Amber Heard, was planning to make an online joke about the thought experiment Rokos Basilisk, where artificial intelligence rule the world and punish those who didn't help their existence.
He was going to joke about "Rococo Basilisk", a phrase merging the experiment and the baroque architectural style, but realised Grimes had beaten him to the punch in 2015, by creating a character called Rococo Basilisk for her music video to Flesh Without Blood.
"Elon was researching the idea of joking about Rococo Basilisk, and when he saw Grimes had already joked about it, he reached out to her," the insider said. "Grimes said this was the first time in three years that anyone understood the joke. They were both poking fun at AI."
The 46-year-old businessman seemed to reference the Page Six report on Twitter ahead of the gala, by tweeting "Rococo basilisk".
Their online flirting reportedly continued from there, with the Tesla founder praising Venus Fly, Grimes' duet with Janelle Monae, calling it the "Best music video art I've seen in a while."
They shared another joke on Twitter in April, when Elon posted photos of a comet and the 30-year-old replied, "that's a lot of cocaine," to which he responded, "Yeah, most people don't know this, but comets (are) mostly made of cocaine." Underneath the exchange, a user wrote, "Just ask her out already Elon."
