Inside Elon Musk’s toxic relationship with his trans daughter: How a bitter public feud broke out between Tesla billionaire and his child Vivian after she ‘disowned’ him in court and he branded her a ‘communist’ who was ‘killed by the woke mind virus’

Elon Musk’s transgender daughter last night branded her billionaire father ‘uncaring’ and ‘narcissistic’, but the pair’s relationship has seemingly been broken for many years now.

Vivian Jenna Wilson, called Xavier Musk at birth, launched a blistering attack against her father yesterday – accusing him of being absentee, ‘cruel’, ‘quick to anger’, and bullying her for being queer – after he said she was ‘not a girl’ and figuratively ‘dead’.

The pair’s increasingly acrimonious public row was first thrown into the spotlight two years ago when Vivian, now 20, in a court filing, declared she ‘no longer wishes to be related’ to her father and legally changed both her name and gender.

Although Vivian says she has not spoken to her father in four years, Musk, 53, has used their apparently toxic relationship as a catalyst to wage his war against trans activism and gender politics, even publicly branding his daughter as a ‘communist’.

Vivian has remained relatively quiet, despite her father’s public criticisms, until this week when she says Musk ‘crossed a line’ by claiming that Vivian was ‘killed by the woke mind virus’ that he had been ‘tricked’ into allowing her to transition.

Seemingly outraged by being ‘reduced to a happy little stereotype’, the 20-year-old declared that she would no longer let Musk’s remarks ‘go unchallenged’ and vowed to ‘debunk’ what she says are claims her father has made up because he wasn’t around during her childhood.

Elon Musk’s transgender daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson (left, pictured this week) has branded her billionaire father ‘uncaring’ and ‘narcissistic’, but the pair’s relationship has seemingly been broken for many years now. Vivian, born Xavier Musk, and her twin brother Griffin (right, pictured with Elon in 2017) are the Tesla CEO’s eldest living children 

Musk appears to have been somewhat involved in Vivian’s childhood, being pictured several times at events with the twins and his then-wife British actress Talulah Riley – although Vivian, now 20, has accused him of being absentee. Musk, Riley and the twins are pictured in 2011

Vivian her twin brother Griffin are the Tesla CEO’s eldest living children, whom he shares with his ex-wife Canadian author Justine Wilson. 

The twins were born in 2004 in California, three years before their younger brothers, Kai, Saxon and Damian, all of whom are now 18.

Musk met his first wife, Wilson, while he was a student at Queen’s University in Ontario. The pair married in 2000. Wilson previously told Musk biographer Ashlee Vance, that he ‘wanted to get married and have kids early on.’

She gave birth to their first child, Nevada, in 2002. Tragically, at just ten weeks old Nevada Alexander Musk died as a result of sudden infant death syndrome.

In 2004, Wilson gave birth to twins, Xavier and Griffin, followed by triplets, Kai, Saxon and Damian, in 2006.

Musk and Wilson divorced in 2008 and agreed to share custody. Wilson wrote in an essay for Marie Clare in 2010 that she had felt more like an ’employee’ to Musk than a partner.

Following his split from Wilson, Musk began dating British actress Talulah Riley, whom he is understood to have met at a bar in London.

Riley – who was a virgin when she began dating Musk in 2008 – first tied the knot with the Tesla architect in 2010. However, their first marriage ended in 2012, when she reportedly walked away with $16 million as part of a divorce settlement.

By the following summer, they had remarried. But then, in December 2014, she filed for divorce a second time, only to withdraw her lawsuit the following year.

In March 2016, she requested a divorce a third time, and the pair split for good; the couple did not have any children together.

However, she appeared to have somewhat embraced her role as a step-mother, having been pictured several times with Musk and his young twins Griffin and Vivian, then-Xavier.

Vivian her twin brother Griffin are the Tesla CEO’s eldest living children, whom he shares with his ex-wife Canadian author Justine Wilson. The former couple are pictured together

Musk (second from left) and Wilson shared five children together. Vivian, then Xavier, is pictured sitting on a couch to CBS Mornings host Norah O’Donnell (right of Musk) in February 2014. She is also accompanied by her siblings

Musk and Wilson’s five children had largely managed to remain out of the spotlight, but in 2012 the author did refer to all of her children as being autistic.

It was further revealed in 2018 that all of boys were being educated at a radical, ultra-exclusive school set up by the Tesla founder at his SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California.

The ‘experimental’ school, which is called Ad Astra, meaning ‘to the stars’ in Latin, was set up in 2014.

As of 2018, it was being attended by a very small, select group of students, including Elon’s five sons and the offspring of several SpaceX employees.

All of the Musk children also, at some point throughout their education, attended the wildly expensive Crossroads K-12 school in Santa Monica, where annual tuition costs up to $50,000. 

Vivian remained out of public sight for much of her late childhood and adolescence, but made headlines in 2022 when she officially adopted her mother’s maiden name.

Vivian, then 18, filed a petition to change both her name and legal gender, and was quoted in court filings as saying she ‘no longer wishes to be related’ to her father ‘in any way.’

A Santa Monica judge issued a new birth certificate that reflected her changed name, and gender, while their ruling simply stated: ‘Xavier Alexander Musk to Vivian Jenna Wilson. The gender of the petitioner is changed from male to female.’

Vivian filed the petition just three days after her 18th birthday, though the court documents weren’t made public until the day after Father’s Day that year.

In a tweet the night her daughter’s petition was granted, Wilson said: ‘”I had a weird childhood,” my 18-year-old said to me.’

‘”I can’t believe I’m as normal-seeming as I am.” I said, “I’m very proud of you.” “I’m proud of myself!”‘

Meanwhile, on Fathers Day, Musk tweeted prior to the revelation of her filings: ‘I love all my kids so much.’

A private woman, she was not spotted in public until several months after her petition was granted.

She was seen on a quick shopping trip in Santa Monica, donning a brown T-shirt with a yellow pattern on it, black sweatpants, and a pair of sneakers. She wore a face mask and kept her long, flowing blonde hair loose.

Vivian remained out of public sight for much of her late childhood and adolescence, but made headlines in 2022 when she filed a petition to change both her name and legal gender. Vivian, then 18, (pictured in 2022) was quoted in court filings as saying she ‘no longer wishes to be related’ to her father ‘in any way’

Musk kisses his then fiancée-Talulah Riley at an event in June 2010, as they stand with his twin boys Griffin (left) and Xavier, (right) now known as Vivian

Must spoke out about his painful estrangement from his daughter for the first time last year, calling her a ‘communist’ and blaming her politics on the expensive private high school she attended.

The billionaire was ‘generally sanguine’ when he first learned of his child’s transition, but things changed when Vivian began expressing extreme Marxist views and declared her intention to sever all ties, according to author Walter Isaacson, who authored a biography about Musk.

‘She went beyond socialism to being a full communist and thinking that anyone rich is evil,’ Musk told the author, placing blame in part on Crossroads, the private K-12 school in Santa Monica where annual tuition costs up to $50,000.

Isaacson wrote that when Vivian was 16, which would have been 2020 or 2021, she texted the wife of Elon’s brother to come out, writing: ‘Hey, I’m transgender, and my name is now Jenna … Don’t tell my dad.’   

The biographer revealed that Musk’s painful rift with Vivian was partly responsible for the billionaire’s ongoing obsession with ‘woke’ ideology, which he views as a threat to human civilization and motivated his $42billion purchase of Twitter in 2022. 

‘Unless the woke mind virus, which is fundamentally anti-science, anti-merit, and anti-human in general, is stopped, civilization will never become multiplanetary,’ Musk told the author.

Musk’s rift with Vivian ‘pained him more than anything in his life since the infant death of his firstborn child Nevada,’ who died just 10 weeks old of sudden infant death syndrome, the biographer added. 

The SpaceX founder further publicized their feud this week by claiming he was ‘tricked’ by the ‘woke mind virus’ into allowing one of his sons to become a transgender woman.

In an interview Monday, however, Musk has made his strongest comments yet against her decision, calling what happened to the billionaire and his family ‘evil’.

‘I was essentially tricked into signing documents for one of my older boys, Xavier,’ he said, using Vivian’s former name.

‘This was really before I had any understanding of what was going on, and we had COVID going on, so there was a lot of confusion. And I was told Xavier might commit suicide,’ Musk said.

The SpaceX founder further publicized their feud this week by claiming he was ‘tricked’ by the ‘woke mind virus’ into allowing one of his sons to become a transgender woman

Musk said he had known from a young age that she was gay, saying she ‘would pick out clothes for me to wear like a jacket and tell it was fabulous’ and loved musicals

He added: ‘I was tricked into doing this. It wasn’t explained to me that puberty blockers are actually just sterilization drugs.

‘I lost my son, essentially. They call it “deadnaming” for a reason. The reason they call it “deadnaming” is because your son is dead, so my son, Xavier, is dead, killed by the woke mind virus.’

Vivian, 20, has now responded, painting a scathing picture of her father in an interview yesterday by saying he was absent and bullied her for being queer. 

‘I think he was under the assumption that I wasn’t going to say anything and I would just let this go, unchallenged,’ she told NBC News.

‘[But] I’m not going to do [that] because if you’re going to lie about me, like, blatantly to an audience of millions, I’m not just gonna let that slide.

‘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. It was cruel.’

Discussing his comment that he had been ‘tricked’ into approving gender-affirming medical care for Vivian, she added: ‘He was not by any means tricked.’

She went on to describe the puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy she received as ‘saving lives’.

In a post on X, Musk also said that Vivian was ‘born gay and slightly autistic’ and that, at age 4, she fit certain gay stereotypes, such as loving musicals.

Vivian replied by saying: ‘He doesn’t know what I was like as a child because he quite simply wasn’t there. 

‘And in the little time that he was I was relentlessly harassed for my femininity and queerness.

‘I’ve been reduced to a happy little stereotype,’ she continued. ‘I think that says alot about how he views queer people and children in general.’

She also took to X’s arch rival site Threads, owned by Mark Zuckerberg‘s Meta, declaring: ‘I want to make absolutely clear that I have disowned him and not the other way round.’

Furthermore, she used the platform to challenge her father’s tweets, including the one in which he claimed that she was born ‘gay and slightly autistic’. 

Musk said he had known from a young age that she was gay, saying she ‘would pick out clothes for me to wear like a jacket and tell it was fabulous’ and loved musicals. 

Vivian said: ‘There’s a lot of stuff I need to debunk, but I want to start with what I find the funniest which is the notorious “slightly autistic” tweet.

‘This is gonna be a bit so just bare with me. This is entirely fake. Like, literally none of this ever happened. Ever. I don’t even know where he got this from.’

The South African billionaire has fathered a reported 12 children over last 22 years and has spoken publicly about his view that the world is underpopulated. He had his kids with three different women – Wilson, the mother of Vivian; musician Grimes; and his employee, Shivon Zilis. His youngest child, with Zilis, was born in 2024

Vivian wrote that she had never loved musicals or theatre and also hit back at his claims about picking out clothes for her father. 

She said: ‘I never picked out jackets for him to wear and I was most certainly not calling them “fabulous” because literally what the f***. 

‘I did not use the word fabulous when I was four because once again I would like to reiterate…I was four. 

‘Like this is so obvious I don’t even think it warrants explanation but apparently people believe this nonsense so here I am.’

The South African billionaire has fathered a reported 12 children over last 22 years and has spoken publicly about his view that the world is underpopulated.

He had his kids with three different women – Wilson, the mother of Vivian; musician Grimes; and his employee, Shivon Zilis. His youngest child, with Zilis, was born in 2024.