Elon Musk, X/Tesla CEO, arrives before the start of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senators Rounds, Heinrich And Young hosting the Inaugural Artificial Intelligence Insight Forum With Key AI Stakeholders Photo: Jack Gruber / USA TODAY NETWORK / USA TODAY NETWORK
Elon Musk’s transgender daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson pushed back against transphobic claims her billionaire father made about her in a recent interview with Canadian right-wing provocateur Jordan Peterson.
“I think he was under the assumption that I wasn’t going to say anything and I would just let this go unchallenged,” Wilson told NBC News. “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.”
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She described how Musk would berate her for any sign of gender nonconformity, including having too high-pitched of a voice. She described him as “cold,” “very quick to anger,” and “uncaring and narcissistic.”
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“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.”
She hasn’t spoken to her father in years, she said, and does not want her relationship with him to define her. She emphasized that she’s an adult who makes her own decisions independent of him.
Wilson also stressed how Musk has been a very absent parent.
“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.”
Musk had previously claimed that he was “tricked” into signing papers that allowed Wilson to transition, additionally claiming that she was “dead” due to the “woke mind virus.” She disputed this on Threads in a viral series of posts where she criticized his comments. “Last time I checked I am, indeed, not dead… I look pretty good for a dead b*tch,” she wrote.
In the NBC interview, Wilson pushed back on his claim that he was tricked, stating that she had been talking to her father about her transition for months over text while trying to get him to agree to meet with her to get the papers signed.
“I was trying to do this for months, but he said I had to go meet with him in person. At that point, it was very clear that we both had a very distinct disdain for each other.”
She reports that Musk read over the papers twice – once with her and once on his own. “He was not by any means tricked. He knew the full side effects.”
Wilson also talked about how her father’s statements about her in the interview with Peterson have put her in the spotlight, which she didn’t want to be in.
“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.”
Out Canadian musician Grimes, who was Musk’s partner for years, expressed her support for Wilson in a post on X, in which she said, “I love and am forever endlessly proud of Vivian.”
I am not Christian but I respect ur Christian God and have Christian friends and sometimes join them for their holidays or heed their teachings. But I do not hold this world view, and I too enjoy changing my body with tattoos and stuff. But if we’re made in gods image, and he…
LGBTQ Nation reached out to Musk for comment but did not receive a response by publication. This article will be updated in the event that he does respond.
