Elon Musk Doesn't Mince Words About Being Estranged From His Daughter
Although he is currently the CEO of two highly successful companies, as well as most likely the richest person on Earth, businessman Elon Musk has had trouble shielding the public from his personal life in recent months. While he was accused in May of sexual harassment by a SpaceX employee, whom he later tried to silence with hush money, he has also been the subject of much interest (and criticism) for his expansive brood of children — which now numbers at 9 (not including his infant who died from SIDS in 2002).
Although the most recent of these nine children is the second he had with Canadian musician Grimes — from whom he separated in early 2022 — it was also revealed in July that he had an affair with Shivon Zilis, an employee of his, resulting in the birth of twins in November 2021.
In April 2022, the day after she turned 18, one of Musk's two eldest children (one half of his first set of twins) legally changed her name both to reflect her gender identity and to distance herself from her father. "I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form," Vivian Jenna Wilson — born Xavier Musk – wrote on the name change petition, per AP News (Wilson is her mother's surname). Now, Musk has finally opened up about his estrangement from his daughter, and his reaction is certainly unsurprising to those who follow him.
Elon Musk dismisses his daughter's new identity
The fact that Elon Musk is famously hostile to transgender people – famously tweeting "pronouns suck" in July 2020 before deleting it at the behest of his then-partner Grimes, and even publicly misgendering people in the past — almost certainly played a role in his estrangement with his eldest daughter Vivian. But now, Musk is doubling down — all but dismissing Vivian from his life.
In an interview with the Financial Times on Friday, Musk inexplicably got political when it came to his daughter's recent decisions, blaming the left-wing in America and the supposed takeover of America's higher educational institutions by "neo-Marxists" for Vivian's transition (via Page Six). "It's full-on communism," he said, "and a general sentiment that 'if you're rich, you're evil.'" He added that his relationship with Vivian "may change," but that he continued to have "very good relationships" with all his other children. He added, "Can't win them all."
Of course, Musk has been open about the fact that his children's mothers take a much more active role in parenting than he. And apart from Vivian's twin, all of Musk's other children are either 16 or infants, meaning that it remains to be seen whether the others do indeed follow in her footsteps.