Vivian Jenna Wilson, the transgender daughter of Elon Musk, said Thursday in her first public interview that she was an absentee father who was cruel to her as a child because she was queer and female.
Wilson, 20, in an exclusive interview with NBC News, responded to comments Musk made Monday about her and her transgender identity. On social media and in an interview posted online, Musk said she was “not a girl” and was figuratively “dead” and claimed he had been “tricked” into authorizing medical treatment related to Wilson when she was 16 years.
Wilson said Musk had not been tricked and that, after initially being hesitant, he knew what he was doing when he agreed to her treatment, which required her parents’ consent.
Musk’s recent statements crossed the line, he said.
“I think he was under the assumption that I wasn’t going to say anything and I was going to let it go, no question,” Wilson said in a telephone 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 going to just let it get away with it.”
Wilson said that, as far as she could remember, Musk was not a supportive father. She said he was rarely present in her life, leaving Wilson and her siblings to be cared for by their mother or nannies even though Musk had joint custody, and said Musk scolded her when he was present.
“He was cold,” she said. “He’s very quick to anger. He’s uncaring and narcissistic.”
Wilson said that when she was a child, Musk bullied her for exhibiting feminine features and would pressure her to appear more masculine, including pushing her to deepen her voice as early as elementary school.
“I was in the fourth grade. We went on this road trip that I didn’t know was actually just an ad for one of the cars — I don’t remember which one — and he kept yelling at me because my voice was so loud,” she said. “It was tough.”
Musk did not respond to a request for comment.
Wilson and her twin brother were born to Musk’s first wife, writer Justine Musk. The couple divorced in 2008, and Wilson said her parents shared custody between their homes in the Los Angeles area.
Musk, 53, is among the world’s richest people through his stakes in Tesla, where he is chief executive, and SpaceX, which he founded. He has also become a major political figure, having endorsed former President Donald Trump this month for another term in the White House. Musk has 12 children, including Wilson.
Now a college student studying languages, Wilson has never given an interview before and has largely stayed out of the public eye. However, it gained attention in 2022 when sought the court’s approval to California to change her name and, in the process, reported her father.
“I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form,” she told the court.
He told NBC News that at the time, he was surprised by the media attention for the case, which he filed when he was 18. She said in the interview that she stands by what she wrote, though she said she might have tried to be more eloquent had she known the coverage she would receive.
Wilson said she hadn’t spoken to Musk in about four years and declined to be nominated by him.
“I would like to emphasize one thing: I am an adult. I am 20 years old. I am not a child,” he said. “My life must be defined by my own choices.”
Musk turned the spotlight on Wilson on Monday by talking about their relationship in a video interview with psychologist and conservative commentator Jordan Peterson that aired live on X, saying he did not support Wilson’s gender identity.
“I basically lost my son,” Musk said. He used Wilson’s birth name, also known as a dead name for transgender people, and said she was “dead, killed by the vigilante virus.”
And in a Monday X post, Musk said Wilson was “born gay and slightly autistic” and that, at 4, she fit certain gay stereotypes, like loving musicals and using the exclamation “fabulous!” to describe certain clothes. Wilson told NBC News that those anecdotes are not true, though she said she acted stereotypically feminine in other ways as a child.
Wilson also addressed Musk’s recent comments in a series of posts Thursday on the social networking app Threads.
“He doesn’t know what I was like as a kid because he just wasn’t there,” she wrote. “And in the short time it was, I was relentlessly harassed for my femininity and queerness.”
“I’ve been reduced to a happy little stereotype,” he continued. “I think that says a lot about how he views queer people and kids in general.”
In recent years Musk has taken a hard right turn in conservative politics and has campaigned against transgender people and policies designed to support them. This month, he said he was withdrawing his businesses of California to protest a new state law barring schools from requiring transgender children to be given to their parents.
On the social media app X, Musk has for years criticized transgender rights, including medical treatment for transgender-identified minors and use of pronouns if it differs from the one he would have used at birth. It has promoted anti-trans content and called for arresting people who provide transgender care to minors.
After Musk bought X, then known as Twitter, in 2022, he retired the app protection for transgender people including prohibition about using dead names.
Musk told Peterson that Wilson’s gender transition was the motivation behind his push into conservative politics.
“I vowed to destroy the vigilance virus after this and we are making some progress,” he said.
Wilson also referenced a biography of Musk by author Walter Isaacson — a book she told NBC News was inaccurate and unfair to her. The book refers to her politics as “radical Marxism,” citing Musk’s sister-in-law Christiana Musk, but Wilson said she is not a Marxist, though she has said she opposes wealth inequality. The book also calls her by her middle name, Jenna.
Wilson said Isaacson never contacted her directly before publication. In a phone interview Thursday, Isaacson said he had contacted Wilson through family members.
Christiana Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.
Wilson told NBC News that for years she had considered speaking out about Musk’s behavior as a parent and as a person, but that she could no longer stay silent after his comments on Monday.
She said she was never given an explanation as to why her father spent so little time with her and her siblings – behavior she now finds strange.
“He was there, I want to say, maybe 10% of the time. That’s generous,” he said. “She had half custody and wasn’t fully there.”
“It was just a fact of life at the time, so I don’t think I realized how unnatural an experience it was,” she added.
Wilson said she came out twice in her life: once as gay in eighth grade and a second time as transgender when she was 16. She said she doesn’t remember Musk’s response the first time and wasn’t present when Musk learned from others that she was transgender because by then the pandemic had started and she was living full-time with her mother.
“She’s very supportive. I love her a lot,” Wilson said of her mom.
The pandemic was an opportunity to escape Musk’s cruelty, he said.
“When Covid hit, I said, ‘I’m not going there,'” he said. “Basically it was very lucky timing.”
Musk told Peterson in the interview that he had been “tricked” into signing documents authorizing transgender-related medical treatment for Wilson — a claim Wilson said is not true.
“I was basically tricked into signing papers for one of my older boys,” Musk said using her name.
“This was before I really understood what was going on and we had Covid going on,” he said, adding that he was told he might kill himself.
Wilson said that in 2020, when she was still a minor at 16, she wanted to begin treatment for severe gender dysphoria, but she needed consent from both parents under California law. She said her mother was supportive, but that Musk was initially not. He said he texted him about it for a while.
“I’ve been trying to do this for months, but he said I had to go and meet him in person,” she said. “At that point, it was very clear that we both had a very distinct disdain for each other.”
When she finally went and gave him the medical forms, she said, he read them at least twice, once with her and then again by himself, before signing them.
“He was not deceived in any way. He knew the full side effects,” he said.
She said she took puberty blockers before switching to hormone replacement therapy — treatments she said have been a lifesaver for her and other trans people.
“They save lives. Let’s not confuse it,” he said. “They definitely allowed me to thrive.”
He said he believed the requirements to receive such treatments remained onerous, with teenagers being pressured to say they were at extreme risk of self-harm before being approved. She said she felt judged by Musk and Peterson, in Monday’s interview, for not being high enough risk in their eyes.
“They’ve basically put me in a position where, to a group of people, I basically have to prove whether or not I was suicidal or not to justify the medical transition,” he said. “It’s absolutely shocking.”
— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this story
