It shouldn’t be a surprise that Elon Musk’s trans daughter dislikes him. But her Teen Vogue interview says a lot about MAGA’s new hero.
Estranged daughter of Elon Musk has lost count of her siblings
Elon Musk’s estranged transgender daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson, has revealed that she is unaware of how many siblings she has.
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There are plenty of words I could use to describe Elon Musk: power-hungry, transphobic and dangerous are a few that come to mind. But no one can describe him better than his daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson, who put her estranged father on blast in a special issue of Teen Vogue.
Wilson, a 20-year-old college student studying in Tokyo, has used her social media platform to combat her father’s depiction of her and give voice to her own leftist politics.
The entire interview – Wilson’s second ever – is pure gold. It also shed light on the person Musk is and some of his actions, like the Tesla CEO’s salute during a Trump inauguration event that many believed had some Nazi ties.
“Honey, we’re going to call a fig a fig, and we’re going to call a Nazi salute what it was,” Wilson said. “That s— was definitely a Nazi salute.”
It’s telling that one of Musk’s own children – a daughter he repeatedly deadnames and has claimed was “killed by the woke mind virus” as recently as this weekend – is speaking out against her father’s ascent to power within the Trump administration. Sure, parent-child relationships can be complicated (especially for queer youth), but Wilson’s interview is a vital insight into the man taking a chainsaw to the federal government.
Who is Vivian Jenna Wilson? She’s telling us about MAGA’s hero.
She was defiant when asked if she was scared of her father, the richest man in the world.
“He’s a pathetic man-child,” Wilson told Teen Vogue. “Why would I feel scared of him? Ohhh, he has so much power. Nah, nah, nah. I don’t give a f—.”
In 2024, Wilson publicly responded to her father’s deadnaming her and refusal to see her as a woman in social media posts. On X last year, Musk said that his child was born “gay and slightly autistic,” would pick out clothes for him to wear and loved musical theater.
“This is entirely fake,” Wilson said on Threads, a competitor to X, which Musk owns. “Like, literally none of this ever happened. Ever. I don’t even know where he got this from. My best guess is that he went to the Milo Yiannopoulis school of gay stereotypes, just picked some at random and said ‘eh- good enough’ in a last-ditch attempt to garner sympathy points when he is so obviously in the wrong even in his own f—— story.”
In an interview with NBC News last July following her Threads takedown of him, Wilson explained that Musk was an absent father who berated her for things like speaking with a high-pitched voice.
“He was cold,” she said. “He’s very quick to anger. He is uncaring and narcissistic.”
Wilson isn’t the only person in Musk’s life to stand up to him. Her mother, Musk’s ex-wife Justine, wrote an essay for Marie Claire in 2010 detailing their divorce. In the story, she said she repeatedly had to remind Musk that she was not his employee. She recounted that he’d respond: “If you were my employee, I would fire you.”
Musk has not commented on the claims his daughter and ex-wife have made and did not provide a comment to Teen Vogue. Wilson said she hasn’t spoken to her father since 2020.
But doesn’t he seem peachy?
What has Elon Musk been up to? More than just being a bad dad.
While Musk hasn’t commented on his daughter’s interview, his actions speak for themselves. As Wilson’s cover story dropped last week, he blamed recent vandalism of Tesla dealerships on “trans violence,” claiming that hormone replacement therapy causes “extreme emotional volatility.”
That isn’t just false, it’s dangerous. It paints transgender people as incapable of controlling their emotions and prone to violence, which can open them up to more stigma and harm.
Coinciding with Musk’s rightward shift is his ascent in U.S. politics, as well as a plunging approval rating. On Monday, CNN reported that his favorability among all voters had plunged from +24 to -19 from 2017 to 2025.
Wilson, for her part, shut down the idea that any of Musk’s politics are because of her transition, which began when she was in her teens.
“Him going further on the right, and I’m going to use the word ‘further’ ‒ make sure you put ‘further’ in there ‒ is not because of me,” she said to Teen Vogue. “That’s insane.”
Teen publications continue to be a leader in news coverage
Aside from the fact that Wilson is making important points about her estranged father, she also just seems cool – the interview covered everything from “RuPaul’s Drag Race” to “Hunger Games” to the friends she keeps up with on Discord.
It’s another example of teen publications meeting the moment we’re in right now with exceptional journalism that’s thorough, engaging and considerate of all identities. In February, Seventeen launched its rebrand with a cover story on Zaya Wade, 17, the trans daughter of former NBA player Dwyane Wade and stepdaughter to actress Gabrielle Union. In the interview, she talked about dating, her favorite movies and her skincare routine – things that all teenage girls, regardless of gender identity, can relate to.
Clearly, transgender youth are not the villains that the right has made them out to be. These teenagers and young adults are trying to live their lives, just like everyone else their age: applying to colleges, hanging out with friends and obsessing over their passions. The Republican Party wants you to think that these youth are actively harming America with “radical gender ideology.” I think a lot of them are just trying to pass calculus.
The fact that Musk seems incapable of loving his trans daughter for who she is says a lot. A parent’s love should be unconditional; I have learned through my own coming out experience that even if parents don’t always get it right, their vocal support makes a world of difference.
Wilson seems to have this support in her mother, whom she says “pretended to be slightly surprised for 30 seconds” when her daughter first came out as transgender.
It is a scary time for trans people, particularly trans women. Good on Wilson for not letting anyone – even her father – scare her.
Follow USA TODAY columnist Sara Pequeño on X, formerly Twitter: @sara__pequeno