Tension between billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk and his estranged, transgender daughter Vivian Wilson spilled into public view this week after she spoke out to counter her father’s claims that she is “dead — killed by the woke mind virus.”
In an interview with Jordan Peterson, Musk alleged he had been “tricked” into approving gender-affirming care for Wilson at 16 and had subsequently “lost” his son. The experience, he said, made him an ardent opponent of gender-affirming care and fueled his quest to “destroy the woke mind virus.”
On X after the interview, Musk said that his child was born “gay and slightly autistic” and claimed these traits “contribute to gender dysphoria.” Wilson shot back soon after on Threads, dismissing her father’s characterization of her childhood as “entirely fake.” She criticized him for peddling harmful stereotypes about trans and queer people in “an attempt to garner sympathy points.”
“He doesn’t know what I was like as a child because he quite simply wasn’t there,” the 20-year-old said in one post. And when her father was present, Wilson said, he “relentlessly harassed” her for her “femininity and queerness.”
Washington Post reporters called and texted a phone number for Wilson but did not get a response. Musk did not respond to emailed requests for comment from The Post.
The dispute marks a rare public spat between Wilson and Musk, whose frustrations over her transition have been central to his well-documented rightward political shift. In recent years, Musk has been embraced by prominent conservatives such as Tucker Carlson, spoken out against corporate diversity initiatives and amplified right-wing commentators on social media.
On X, the social media platform he owns, he has decried gender pronouns with statements that have drawn backlash, even from those close to him.
“I absolutely support trans, but all these pronouns are an esthetic nightmare,” Musk wrote in late 2020. In response to a tweet earlier that year where he wrote “Pronouns suck,” he was admonished by his then-partner Grimes, who asked him to stop and said she could not “support hate,” news outlets reported.
In the Peterson interview, Musk characterized the gender-affirming treatments that Wilson received, including puberty blockers, as “child mutilation and sterilization.”
Musk also told Peterson that permitting children to change their gender identity is “incredibly evil” and that those who advocate for gender-affirming care for young people “should go to prison.”
Vivian is one of six children that the billionaire has had with Justine Wilson, a writer. He also has three children with Grimes, a musician, and three children with Shivon Zilis, an executive at Musk’s Neuralink company.
Many states have banned gender-affirming care for transgender minors. A majority of Americans oppose puberty-blocking medications and hormonal treatments for trans children, according to a Washington Post-KFF poll, although the American Psychological Association has said the ability to access such treatments improves the overall well-being of those youths.
Puberty blockers prevent the release of sex hormones. Once a patient stops taking blockers, their body immediately returns to producing its natal hormones.
Although Musk used the term “sterilization,” doctors who treat trans patients say puberty blockers alone do not cause infertility. Puberty blockers have been used for years on children who experience precocious puberty, and they are “reversible no matter what,” said Marci Bowers, one of the nation’s preeminent gender transition surgeons and the president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.
But a patient’s outcomes will vary based on when they start on the blockers, whether they take cross-sex hormones and how long they remain on the medication.
After the Peterson interview, Musk was criticized for “deadnaming” his child — referring to her by her birth name and gender. Others’ refusal to use pronouns that trans- and gender-expansive youths use is a common, devastating problem for them, according to the Human Rights Campaign, which says that half of those youths say their family “never” refers to them with accurate pronouns.
Musk was criticized by LGBTQ+ advocates this year after he said that “cis” and “cisgender” would be treated as slurs on X. Last year, he defended a policy that allowed users to misgender people on the platform as a matter of “free speech.”
LBGTQ+ youth are being negatively affected by “hostile political rhetoric that often targets them, including from high-profile figures like Elon Musk,” said Jared Todd, senior press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign.
“In a world where Musk could use his public status for good, he chooses to use trans youth as a scapegoat,” Todd said Friday in an emailed statement to The Post. “It’s both sad and unsurprising given his history.”
In recent years, Todd said, the HRC has called out Musk for policies that have made X “a place where harmful rhetoric and bullying can spread unchecked.” He cited Musk’s recent decision to move the headquarters of SpaceX and X away from California in protest of a new state law barring school districts from requiring parents to be notified of a child’s change in gender identity.
“Musk’s ignorant and inflammatory views on the trans community — even his own daughter — are out-of-step with those of a majority of Americans, and a permanent stain on his character and reputation,” Todd said.
Wilson and Musk have been distant for some time, Wilson told NBC on Thursday in her first public interview. She formally severed ties with the billionaire more than two years ago.
“I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form,” Wilson stated in a petition filed with California Superior Court in April 2022, when she sought to officially change her name.
Wilson’s pushback against her father has garnered support online, including from Grimes, the musician who has children with the Tesla CEO.
“I love and am forever endlessly proud of Vivian,” Grimes said Thursday in an X post.
