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Vivian Jenna Wilson, Elon Musk’s transgender daughter, said Thursday in her first interview that she was an absent father who was cruel to her as a child for being queer and feminine.
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 published online, Musk said she was “not a girl” and was figuratively “dead,” and claimed he had been “tricked” into authorizing trans medical treatment -tied for her when she was 16.
Wilson said Musk had not been tricked and that, after initially hesitating, he knew what he was doing when he agreed to his treatment, which required his parents’ consent.
Musk’s latest statements crossed a line, he said.
“I think he was under the assumption that I wasn’t going to say anything and I was just going to leave this unchallenged,” Wilson said in a telephone interview. “Which I’m not going to do, because if you’re going to lie about me, like, brazenly to an audience of millions, I’m not going to just let it slide.”
Wilson said that for as long as he could remember, Musk had not been a supportive father. She said he was rarely present in her life, leaving her and her siblings to be cared for by their mother or father even though Musk had joint custody, and said Musk scolded her when he was present. .
“It was cold,” he said. “He is very quick to anger. He is indifferent and narcissistic.”
Wilson said that when she was a child, Musk would tease her for exhibiting feminine traits and pressure her to appear more masculine, even pushing her to deepen her voice as far back as elementary school.
“I was in fourth grade. We went on this road trip that I didn’t know was actually just a commercial for one of the cars – I don’t remember which one – and he was constantly yelling at me viciously because my voice was too loud” , he said. “It was cruel.”
Musk did not respond to a request for comment.
Wilson and his twin brother were born to Musk’s first wife, author Justine Musk. The couple divorced in 2008, and Wilson said her parents split custody between their homes in the Los Angeles area.
Musk, 53, is among the richest people in the world because of his holdings in Tesla, where he is CEO, and in SpaceX, which he founded. He has also become a significant 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 university student studying languages, Wilson has never granted an interview before and has largely stayed out of public view. However, it attracted attention in 2022 when she sought the court’s approval to California to change his name and, in the process, denounced his father.
“I no longer live with my biological father or want to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form,” she said in court.
She told NBC News that at the time, she was surprised by the media attention to the court filing, which she filed when she was 18. In the interview, she said that she stands by what she wrote, although she said that she could have tried to do it. be more eloquent if he had known the coverage he would have.
Wilson said she hadn’t spoken to Musk in about four years and refused to be defined by him.
“I want 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 choices.”
Musk fired back at Wilson on Monday by talking about his relationship in a video interview with psychologist and conservative commentator Jordan Peterson live on X, saying he doesn’t support Wilson’s gender identity.
“I lost my son, essentially,” 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 awakened mind virus.”
And in a post on X, Musk said Monday that Wilson was “born gay and a little autistic” and that, at the age of 4, he fit certain gay stereotypes, such as loving music and the use of the exclamation “fabulous!” to describe some clothes. Wilson told NBC News that the 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 how I was as a child because he wasn’t there,” he wrote. “And in the short time it was, I was relentlessly harassed about my femininity and my queerness.”
“I’m reduced to a happy little stereotype,” he continued. “I think it says a lot about how you see queer people and kids in general.”
In recent years, Musk has taken a tough–turn straight in conservative politics and waged a campaign against transgender people and the policies designed to support them. This month, he said he was remove their businesses of California to protest a new state law that prevents schools from requiring trans children to come out to their parents.
In X, Musk has criticized transgender rights for years, including medical treatment for trans-identifying minors, and use of pronouns if they are different from what would be used at birth. He promoted anti-trans content and called to arrest people which provides trans assistance to minors.
After Musk bought X, then known as Twitter, in 2022, he relaunched the app protection for trans peopleincluding a ban on the use of dead names.
Musk told Peterson that Wilson’s gender transition was the motivation for his push into conservative politics.
“I promised to destroy the awakened mind virus later, and we are making some progress,” he said.
Wilson was also mentioned in 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 has said she is not a Marxist, though she has said she opposes the wealth inequality. The book also called her by her middle name, Jenna.
Wilson said Isaacson never reached out to her directly before publication. In a phone interview Thursday, Isaacson said he had reached out to Wilson through family members.
Christiana Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.
Wilson told NBC News that for years he had considered speaking out about Musk’s behavior as a parent and as a person, but that he could no longer remain silent after his comments on Monday.
She said she had never received an explanation why her father spent so little time with her and her siblings — behavior she now sees as strange.
“He was there, I mean, maybe 10% of the time. That’s generous,” he said. “He had half custody, and he wasn’t fully there.”
“It was just a fact of life at the time, so I don’t think I realized how abnormal an experience it was,” he added.
Wilson said she has come 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 heard it. others that she was transgender, because since then the pandemic had started and she lived full time with her mother.
“She’s very supportive. I love her a lot,” Wilson said of her mother.
The pandemic was a chance to escape Musk’s cruelty, he said.
“When Covid hit, I said, ‘I’m not going there,'” he said. “It was basically very lucky timing.”
Musk told Peterson in the interview that he had been “tricked” into signing documents authorizing transgender medical treatment for Wilson — an allegation that Wilson said is not true.
“I was essentially tricked into signing papers for one of my older boys,” Musk said, using his birth name.
“That was before I really understood what was going on, and we had Covid going on,” she said, adding that she had been told she might commit suicide.
Wilson said that in 2020, when she was still a minor at 16, she wanted to start treatment for severe gender dysphoria, but she needed the consent of both parents under California law. She said her mother was supportive, but that Musk initially was not. She said she texted him for a while.
“I’ve been trying to do this for months, but he said I had to go with him in person,” she said. “At that point, it was very clear that we both had a very distinct disdain for each other.”
When he eventually went and gave her the medical forms, she said, he read them at least twice, once with her and then to himself, before signing them.
“He was not in any way deceived. He knew all the side effects,” he said.
She said she took puberty blockers before switching to hormone replacement therapy — treatments she said were life-saving for her and other transgender people.
“They save lives. We don’t go that twisted,” he said. “It definitely allowed me to thrive.”
She said she believes the requirements to get such treatments remain onerous, with teenagers pressured to say they are 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 at a high enough risk in their eyes.
“I was basically put at a point where, to a group of people, I had to basically prove whether or not it was suicidal or not to justify the medical transition,” he said. “It’s absolutely amazing.”
This article was originally published in NBCNews.com