In her first interview, Vivian Jenna Wilson, Elon Musk’s transgender daughter, accused her father of being cruel and absent throughout her childhood, especially regarding her gender identity. She challenged Musk’s recent comments where he claimed he was tricked into supporting her transition and that she was “dead” to him. Wilson, who described Musk as cold and harsh, detailed how he berated her for her femininity and how their strained relationship led to significant emotional distress. Despite Musk’s public criticism and recent conservative stances, Wilson stands firm in her identity and defends her right to live authentically.
Elon Musk’s transgender daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson claimed in her first interview on Thursday that her father was rude to her because she was queer and feminine when she was a young girl and that he was absent.
In a special interview with NBC News, Wilson, 20, addressed remarks Musk made on Monday regarding her and her gender identification. Musk claimed that she was “not a girl” and that she was practically “dead” in an interview that was made public on social media. He also claimed that he had been “tricked” into approving her transgender medical care when she was just 16 years old.
Wilson asserted that Musk wasn’t duped and that, despite his initial reluctance, he knew what he was doing when he consented to her therapy, which needed her parents’ approval.
She claimed that Musk went too far with his recent remarks.
“I think he was under the assumption that I wasn’t going to say anything and I would just let this go unchallenged,” Wilson said in a phone interview. “Which I’m not going to do, because if you’re going to lie about me, like, blatantly to an audience of millions, I’m not just gonna let that slide.”
Wilson claimed that Musk hasn’t been a helpful father for as long as she can recall. Despite Musk having shared custody, she said he was rarely in her life and that, on the occasions that he was, Musk berated her. She stated her siblings and she was raised by their mother or nannies.
“He was cold,” she said. “He’s very quick to anger. He is uncaring and narcissistic.”
Wilson claimed that Musk had harassed her since she was a little girl for showing signs of femininity and for trying to make her look more manly, even going so far as to make her voice deeper in elementary school.
“I was in fourth grade. We went on this road trip that I didn’t know was actually just an advertisement for one of the cars — I don’t remember which one — and he was constantly yelling at me viciously because my voice was too high,” she said. “It was cruel.”
Musk did not reply when asked for comments.
Musk’s first wife, writer Justine Musk, gave birth to Wilson and her twin brother. Following their 2008 divorce, Wilson said that her parents divided custody between their Los Angeles-area residences.
Due to his ownership positions in SpaceX, which he established, and Tesla, where he serves as CEO, Elon Musk, 53, is one of the richest persons on the planet. Having supported former President Donald Trump this month for a second term in office, he has also grown in prominence in politics. Wilson is one of 12 children that Musk has.
Wilson, a language student in college now, has mainly avoided the spotlight and never before agreed to an interview. Nonetheless, she gained notoriety in 2022 when she applied for a California court order to alter her name and, in the process, disowned her father.
“I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form,” she said in the court filing.
She said to NBC News that she was taken aback at the time by the media’s interest in the court document, which she had filed when she was just 18 years old. In the interview, she stated that she still believes what she wrote, but that if she had known how much attention it would receive, she might have attempted to be more poetic.
Wilson stated that she refused to let Musk define her and that she hadn’t spoken to him in around four years.
“I would like to emphasize one thing: I am an adult. I am 20 years old. I am not a child,” she said. “My life should be defined by my own choices.”
Wilson came under fire from Musk on Monday after he discussed their relationship in a live, webcast video chat with psychologist and conservative pundit Jordan Peterson on X, claiming he disagreed with Wilson’s gender identity.
“I lost my son, essentially,” Musk said. He used Wilson’s birth name, also known as a deadname for transgender people, and said she was “dead, killed by the woke mind virus.”
Additionally, Musk claimed on Monday in a post on X that Wilson was “born gay and slightly autistic” and that, at the age of four, she matched certain characteristics associated with the LGBT community, such as her love of musicals and her use of the term “fabulous!” to characterize particular items of clothing. Wilson told NBC News that while the stories are untrue, she did behave in other ways as a child that were stereotypically feminine.
In a series of messages published on Thursday on the social media platform Threads, Wilson also addressed Musk’s most recent remarks.
“He doesn’t know what I was like as a child because he quite simply wasn’t there,” she wrote. “And in the little time that he was, I was relentlessly harassed for my femininity and queerness.”
“I’ve been reduced to a happy little stereotype,” she continued. “I think that says a lot about how he views queer people and children in general.”
https://www.threads.net/embed.jsPost by @vivllainousView on Threads
Musk has been fighting against transgender persons and legislation that promotes them since he turned hard-right into conservatism in recent years. He said this month that he was leaving California to oppose a new state law that prevents schools from requiring transgender students to come out to their parents.
For years, Musk has been critical of transgender rights on X, including medical care for adolescents who identify as transgender and the use of pronouns if they differ from birth. He has advocated for the promotion of anti-trans information and the imprisonment of anyone who gives transgender care to youngsters.
Musk eliminated the app’s restrictions for transgender users, including the prohibition on using deadnames, after purchasing X, which was then known as Twitter in 2022.
Musk revealed to Peterson that Wilson’s decision to enter the conservative political arena was prompted by his gender transformation.
After that, he declared, “I vowed to destroy the woke mind virus, and we’re making some progress.”
Additionally, Wilson was mentioned in a Walter Isaacson biography of Musk, which she told NBC News was harsh and wrong. Wilson clarified that she is not a Marxist, despite the fact that the book describes her views as “radical Marxism,” citing Musk’s sister-in-law Christiana Musk. She is also referred to in the book by her middle name, Jenna.
Wilson claimed that Isaacson never contacted her directly before the article was published. During a phone chat on Thursday, Isaacson said that he had gotten in touch with Wilson via relatives.
Requests for comment from Christiana Musk on Thursday were not immediately answered.
Wilson told NBC News that she had thought for years about coming out about Musk’s actions as a mom and a human, but that following his remarks on Monday, she was forced to say something.
She claimed she had never heard an explanation for her father’s behavior, which she now finds odd, regarding his lack of time spent with her and her siblings.
“He was there, I want to say, maybe 10% of the time. That’s generous,” she said. “He had half custody, and he fully was not there.”
“It was just a fact of life at the time, so I don’t think I realized just how abnormal of an experience it was,” she added.
Wilson claimed to have come out twice in her life: initially as a gay student in the eighth grade and again as a transgender person when she was sixteen. She claimed that because the plandemic had already begun and she was living full-time with her mother, she doesn’t remember Musk’s initial response and that she wasn’t there when Musk learned from others that she was transgender.
“She’s very supportive. I love her a lot,” Wilson said of her mom.
She claimed the plandemic offered a way out of Musk’s brutality.
“When Covid hit, I was like, ‘I’m not going over there,’” she said. “It was basically very lucky timing.”
In the interview, Musk claimed that Peterson had been “tricked” into signing papers approving Wilson’s medical care linked to his gender identity—a claim that Wilson has refuted.
“I was essentially tricked into signing documents for one of my older boys,” Musk said, using her birth name.
“This was before I had really any understanding of what was going on, and we had Covid going on,” he said, adding that he was told she might commit suicide.
Wilson stated that in 2020 when she was still 16 years old, she wished to begin treatment for severe gender dysphoria, but according to California law, she needed permission from both parents. She claimed that although Musk wasn’t at first supportive, her mother was. She claimed that she texted him for some time about it.
“I was trying to do this for months, but he said I had to go meet with him in person,” she said. “At that point, it was very clear that we both had a very distinct disdain for each other.”
She added that he read the medical forms at least twice—once with her and once on his own—before signing them when she finally went to give them to him.
“He was not by any means tricked. He knew the full side effects,” she said.
Before beginning hormone replacement therapy, she claimed to have taken puberty blockers. She claimed that these therapies had saved her life and the lives of other transgender people.
“They save lives. Let’s not get that twisted,” she said. “They definitely allowed me to thrive.”
She expressed her belief that the prerequisites for obtaining these medicines are still onerous, requiring teenagers to attest to being at high risk of self-harm before their approval. In the Monday interview, she said that she was assessed unfairly by Musk and Peterson for not being a significant enough risk in their opinion.
“I have been basically put into a point where, to a group of people, I have to basically prove whether or not I was suicidal or not to warrant medically transitioning,” she said. “It’s absolutely mind-boggling.”
Recently, GreatGameInternational reported that Elon Musk has publicly condemned gender-affirming care, claiming it led to his son’s distress and eventual estrangement.
