Vivian hasn’t spoken to Musk in four years and wants her life defined by her own choices, not by her father’s political narrative. (Image Source: X)
Vivian Jenna Wilson, the 20-year-old daughter of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, has spoken publicly for the first time, opening up about her strained relationship with her father. In a deeply personal interview with NBC News, Wilson described Musk as emotionally distant, controlling, and at times, cruel, especially toward her identity as a queer and transgender individual.
Her comments came in response to Musk’s recent public remarks, in which he described Wilson as “dead” and claimed she had been “tricked” into authorizing gender-affirming medical treatment when she was 16. Musk also referred to her using her former name, a practice widely considered harmful within the transgender community.
“He was under the assumption that I wasn’t going to say anything,” Wilson told NBC. “Which I’m not going to do, because if you’re going to lie about me to an audience of millions, I’m not just going to let that slide.”
Wilson, a college student now studying languages, said Musk was largely absent throughout her upbringing. Although her parents shared custody following their 2008 divorce, she said Musk was rarely around and often left parenting responsibilities to their mother or hired help.
“He was cold,” she said. “He’s very quick to anger. He is uncaring and narcissistic.”
Wilson recalled instances from her childhood when Musk would criticize her for acting feminine. One memory, she said, stood out: being berated during a family road trip, which she later discovered was part of a promotional event for one of Musk’s car companies.
“He was constantly yelling at me because my voice was too high,” she said. “I was in fourth grade. It was cruel.”
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Wilson came out as transgender at 16, after first coming out as gay in middle school. She said she began treatment for gender dysphoria during the COVID-19 pandemic but was required by California law to obtain consent from both parents. Musk initially hesitated, she said, but ultimately signed the paperwork after reading the forms multiple times.
“He was not by any means tricked,” Wilson said. “He knew the full side effects.” She added that the treatments, which began with puberty blockers and later included hormone replacement therapy, were essential to her well-being.
“They save lives. Let’s not get that twisted,” she said. “They definitely allowed me to thrive.” Wilson also criticized the narrative that young people must be in extreme distress to receive gender-affirming care, noting the undue pressure placed on transgender teens to demonstrate suicidal ideation.
“I’ve been put in a place where I have to prove whether or not I was suicidal to justify transitioning,” she said. “It’s absolutely mind-boggling.”
Musk’s opposition to transgender rights has become more vocal in recent years, coinciding with a broader political shift to the right. He has publicly denounced gender-affirming care for minors and frequently criticizes inclusive policies on his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
In a recent interview with psychologist Jordan Peterson, Musk described Wilson as “dead,” saying she had been “killed by the woke mind virus.” Wilson said those words not only misrepresented her identity but also weaponized it for political gain. She also rejected claims made by Musk in a separate social media post that she was “born gay and slightly autistic” and that she had exhibited stereotypically gay behavior as a child.
“He doesn’t know what I was like as a child because he quite simply wasn’t there,” she wrote later on Threads. “And in the little time that he was, I was relentlessly harassed for my femininity and queerness.”
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Wilson made headlines in 2022 when she legally changed her name and cut ties with her father in a court filing, stating, “I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape, or form.”
Despite the media attention that followed, she stayed out of the spotlight until now. In her interview, she reiterated her autonomy: “I would like to emphasize one thing: I am an adult. I am 20 years old. I am not a child. My life should be defined by my own choices.”
She said she has not spoken to Musk in about four years and has no desire to rekindle their relationship. Still, she expressed confusion over his persistent efforts to frame their estrangement in ideological terms. “He had half custody, and he fully was not there,” she said. “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.”
Wilson also challenged the depiction of her in Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk, calling it inaccurate. The book, which refers to her politics as “radical Marxism,” did not include her own voice, she said, and the author never contacted her directly.
As for Musk’s suggestion that her transition spurred his political transformation, Wilson offered a clear boundary: “I refuse to be a character in his story. I’m not here to be used.”
