Matt Gaffney’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “Eton Must Change” — Conrad’s writeup.
I groaned when I saw the title, and knew the answer would be Elon Musk. I pondered skipping the grid and submitting that answer, but I had this write up to complete, so here we go.
This week we’re looking for a famous name. There were six theme entries comprised of two four-letter words. Swapping one letter in each word turned them into famous people:
- B(E)AD PIT(A) -> B(R)AD PIT(T)
- ALA(S) ALD(I) -> ALA(N) ALD(A)
- AN(T)E RIC(H) -> AN(N)E RIC(E)
- S(C)AN PE(O)N -> S(E)AN PE(N)N
- VER(B) WAN(D) -> VER(A) WAN(G)
- (J)ETE R(I)SE -> (P)ETE R(O)SE
No obvious connections between those names, but my one second answer remained correct. There had to be a confirming mechanism, so I looked for it. I found it by noticing the swapped R and T in BRAD PITT, reminding me of RTS in the grid. I focused on three-letter grid entries, and there they were:
WSJ Contest – 01.12.2025
- RT[S]: B(R)AD PIT(T)
- NA[P]: ALA(N) ALD(A)
- NE[A]: AN(N)E RIC(E)
- EN[C]: S(E)AN PE(N)N
- AG[E]: VER(A) WAN(G)
- PO[X]: (P)ETE R(O)SE
The third letters of the matching three-letter entries spell SPACEX in theme entry order, confirming my one second answer: Elon Musk. Setting aside my thoughts on the subject matter: this could have been a solid meta, except that the title gave the answer away. Solvers: please share your thoughts.
Rigged, Welcome to the United Banana Republics of WSJ
I submitted SpaceX. What would be the point if you could get it just by looking at the title?
Oh. I didn’t see anything from the pairs of swapped letters; thought about checking the 3-letter entries but didn’t and just submitted the obvious answer from the title.
We figured the list of two four-letter names in the theme entries just demonstrated the mechanism of swapping out two letters. We applied this to the two four-letter words in the title, which, as everyone else has mentioned, was obviously Elon Musk. The three-letter confirmations totally evaded us but were unnecessary. (Coincidentally, we spotted ONEL in the grid, an anagram of Elon.)
The fact that the prompt was “name” and not “person” was why I went looking in the grid. When Matt doesn’t put his hint in the grid (a few usual places – last or first Down/Across or a center clue), the mantra is to check the title. For me (and others) the TITLE was the confirmation of the GRID answer.