Vivian Wilson says her father, Elon Musk, was an unsupportive dad while she was growing up in a life of privilege, she explained in a new interview with Cosmopolitan.

But somehow, somewhere, someone was doing something right. How much wiser, funnier, and more comfortable in her own skin can a famously trans 21-year-old be?

Related

Elon Musk’s daughter Vivian Wilson confirms authenticity of dad’s emails with Jeffrey Epstein

Vivian Wilson is all that.

And a model, too.

Never Miss a Beat

Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

Now 21, the one-time Musk scion filed to legally change her name and gender when she was 18, saying in court documents that she no longer wished to be related to Musk “in any way, shape, or form.”  

Two years later, her father went public with his displeasure around Wilson’s transition, the start of a public obsession with trans people, and coinciding with Musk’s active support of the current president, who was waging his own anti-“trans insanity” crusade.

Musk told a right-wing podcaster that he was “tricked” into signing transition documents for Wilson, and claimed his “son” was “killed by the woke mind virus.”

She responded on TikTok, posting, she “looks pretty good for a dead b**ch.”

“It went mega viral,” Wilson recalled of the clapback in an interview with Cosmopolitan. “Everything took off from there.”

A cover shoot for Vogue in January 2025 put a face and a body to Wilson’s name, still “Elon’s kid” in the public imagination.

“There’s not much I can do about it, so who cares?” she said of the lingering association. “It’s part of my story, but it’s not the future of my story.”

Part of that narrative is the extreme wealth Wilson grew up with in Los Angeles, and her decision to reject it.

“It was a very strange experience, very isolating,” she said of her elite upbringing. “The upper class have their own private schools, social circles, and whatever.”

“I have unlearned a huge amount, but even as a child, I was like, ‘This is a bit gauche,’” she recalled. “I remember being very young and seeing homelessness and feeling sick to my stomach. People would get on me for being like a dramatic little child. But no, I was right to be a dramatic little s**t about that.”

Around the world in that orbit, Wilson observed a “level of detachment from reality itself, in favor of wealth and this illusion that you deserve it while people are sleeping on the streets.”

“Oh, and also ‘Santa Claus is real.’”

Wealth “absolutely” warped the people around her, Wilson said.

“I have seen that s**t firsthand. It will change you, and the desire for power corrupts people from within. It is cartoonish. Achieving that and wanting more is a never-ending cycle of greed and gluttony, where nothing is enough, and you kind of go insane. It turns you into someone different. Which is honestly one of my biggest fears.”

“I also know,” she added, “that, like, I was a rich kid. I should not be lecturing anyone on materialism.”

Wilson’s latest cause for clapback has been Musk’s association with Jeffrey Epstein: emails released this year reveal he wanted to visit the sex trafficker’s private island while on a family holiday in St. Barth’s. Wilson says that lines up with her own childhood memory; she’s publicly offered to assist authorities tracking down the truth about her dad, however she can.

“Bringing down the oligarchy would be tea, but I don’t know if that’s feasible for a 21-year-old. I’m just living my life and speaking out on issues that are important to me,” Wilson said.

Important to her public, though: romance!

Wilson says that’s off the table.

“I don’t want romance; it’s scary. I would like to grow more before getting into another relationship,” Wilson said, humility only adding to her allure.

“I’m not on any dating apps. I made sure to delete that when I got famous. Y’all are never catching me slipping,” she said with a laugh.

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.