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.
In a phone interview, Wilson stated, “I think he was under the impression that I wasn’t going to say anything and I would just let this go unchallenged.” Which I won’t do because I won’t just stand by while you lie about me in front of millions of people. It would be brazen.
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 were raised by their mother or nannies.
She remarked, “He was cold.” He gets angry easily. He is narcissistic and heartless.
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.
“My grade was fourth.” He was always yelling at me angrily because my voice was too high on our road trip, which I didn’t realize was actually just an advertisement for a car, I can’t remember which one,” she recalled. “It was inhumane.”
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.
In the court document, she stated, “I no longer want to be related to my biological father in any manner or form, nor do I live with him.”
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.
One thing I want to make clear is that I am an adult. I’m twenty years old. “I am not a kid,” she declared. “My own decisions should define my life.”
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.
Musk remarked, “I lost my son, essentially.” Using her birth name, Wilson—a transgender person’s deadname—he declared that 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.
She wrote, “He just wasn’t there, so he doesn’t know what I was like as a child.” “And during his brief presence, I experienced constant harassment because of my gender identity and sexual orientation.”
She went on, “I’ve been reduced to a happy little stereotype.” That, in my opinion, reveals a lot about his attitudes about LGBT people and kids in general.
Musk has been fighting against transgender persons and legislation that promote 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 give 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 promised to eradicate the “woke mind virus,” and we’re starting to see some results.”
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.
I would estimate that he was present around 10% of the time. That’s kind,” she remarked. “He was not entirely present, but he had partial custody.”
She continued, “At the time, I don’t think I recognized how unusual of an experience it was—it was just a fact of life.”
In the eighth grade, Wilson came out as lesbian, then at the age of sixteen, she came out again as transgender, according to Wilson. She claimed that because the pandemic 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 is so encouraging. Wilson spoke highly of her mother.
She claimed the epidemic offered a way out of Musk’s brutality.
“I was like, ‘I’m not going over there,'” the woman recalled after Covid struck. “It was just really fortunate 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.
Musk used her birth identity to say, “I was basically tricked into signing documents for one of my older boys.”
He added that he had been informed she might commit herself. “This was prior to my having a clear understanding of the situation, and Covid was ongoing” he claimed.
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.
She claimed, “I tried to do this for months, but he insisted that I go meet with him in person.” “At that moment, it was evident that we held a deep contempt for one another.”
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 duped in the slightest. He was aware of all the negative implications, she continued.
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 prevent fatalities.” Let’s not misunderstand it,” she remarked. “I can definitely thrive because of them.”
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’ve been put in a situation where I essentially have to prove to a group of people whether or not I was suicidal in order to justify medically transitioning,” the woman stated. It truly is mind-boggling.