Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig xname.org. NS
Answer
xname.org. 3 NS y.ns.joker.com.
xname.org. 3 NS x.ns.joker.com.
xname.org. 3 NS z.ns.joker.com.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0