In many ways, Vivian Jenna Wilson is a lot like any other 20-year-old girl. The Los Angeles native spends hours a day on Discord with her friends; loves reading, RuPaul’s Drag Race, and Chappell Roan; and she runs late — two full hours late, to be specific, for our scheduled Zoom meeting. Also like many 20-year-olds, she has a complicated relationship with her father. But not everybody’s dad is the richest man in the world — a man who spent the last few years consolidating power, becoming one of the most prolific posters on a social media platform he purchased, and suddenly, one of the most powerful figures in the US government. Wilson is, whether she likes it or not, the daughter of Elon Musk.
Wilson entered the public consciousness because of her father, but not for typical nepo baby reasons. (Before you ask, Wilson says she’s been financially independent from her father since she came out as trans in 2020, so you can stop sending her Venmo requests for thousands of dollars, something she says has happened before.) At the time, she was trying to disconnect herself from Musk, eventually writing in a 2022 petition to legally change her name that she doesn’t “wish to be related to [her] biological father in any way, shape or form.” Though she’d never publicly spoken about Musk before then, her attempt to distance herself from him is what ultimately drew her into the public eye.
“I have a sharp tongue,” Wilson tells Teen Vogue in her second-ever published interview. “When you spend all of COVID [lockdown] in online communities of queer people who are constantly getting into drama and trying to read each other, [you] learn how to make a response very quickly, and you learn how to be funny and snap at someone else in a comedic way…. Getting into fights with other queer teenagers — that’s how you learn how to be quick and witty.” Much like her father, Wilson is extremely online; unlike her father, she’s really good at it.
It is publicly known that Musk has as many as 14 children with 4 different mothers across a 20-year span: 6 including Vivian (and a child that passed away as a baby) with his ex-wife Justine Wilson; 4 with Shivon Zilis, a top executive at the Musk-owned company Neuralink; and 3 with the musician Grimes. On February 14, conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair announced a 13th child (who, as of this writing, Musk has yet to acknowledge), and on February 28, a 14th child with Zilis was reported.
Fatherhood is a core part of the public persona put forth by the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X (formerly Twitter), who frequently expresses alarm about declining birth rates and what he sees as their negative impact on society. As leader of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which has laid off huge swaths of the federal workforce and shrunk spending for essential government agencies, he has brought his four-year-old son, X Æ A-Xii, or “Lil X,” to meetings at the Capitol and a press conference in the Oval Office.
Two years after Wilson filed that name-change petition (and, notably, just nine days after Musk officially endorsed now-President Trump’s campaign), her father spoke about her in a conversation with manosphere influencer Jordan Peterson, repeatedly deadnaming Wilson and claiming she’d been “killed by the woke mind virus.” During that interview, Musk built on the picture of Wilson painted in Walter Isaacson’s 2023 biography Elon Musk. In that telling, according to Wilson, she was an angry, rebellious child, blinded by radical anticapitalist ideology and hurting her father with her rash decisions.
So, for the first time, Wilson spoke up. In a series of posts on Threads (an X competitor), she described Musk’s characterization of her in an X post as “entirely fake,” called him “desperate for attention and validation,” and told him to touch grass.
Since then Wilson has remained highly active on social media, posting to Threads, Instagram, Bluesky (another X competitor), and racking up millions of views on TikTok. She’s garnered a following of nearly one million people across platforms. At the same time, she’s avoided speaking to the media, doing only one interview with NBC News to share some of her side of the story after Musk’s interview with Peterson.
Wilson’s father certainly looms large, particularly in this moment as he continues to take on more political power than even some judges seem to think is legal. Despite Wilson’s distance from Musk, she has unique insight into this precarious moment in the US’s political history. But she’s much more than the estranged daughter of the world’s richest man — in fact, she says, she barely thinks about her father. “I’m not giving anyone that space in my mind,” she tells Teen Vogue. “The only thing that gets to live free in my mind is drag queens.”
Instead, Wilson says, she’s building her future on a platform she’s created herself. She’s living abroad and studying languages in school — she has studied French, Spanish, and Japanese — and, before this all happened, she hoped to become a translator.
But with her newfound prominence, Wilson is considering other possibilities, like Twitch streaming and modeling. “I haven’t made any money from being famous at all. I have made zero dollars and zero cents. I do live in a lot of people’s heads rent-free, though,” she quips. “I feel like Twitch streaming would be so much fun…. I don’t feel like the world needs another Twitch streamer, but [I’d] love to do it.”
Other onscreen options also appeal to her: “It is my absolute dream to be on a reality show, which I know is absolutely pathetic,” Wilson says with a laugh. “As an overdramatic little queer, reality shows are something I adore beyond belief.” And with this cover story on the books — her first — it feels likely that more opportunities will be coming Wilson’s way.
“Vivian has always had an uncompromising sense of who she is — and who she needs to be,” Wilson’s mom, Justine, tells Teen Vogue. “She is big, fierce, wild multi-layered magic.”
Wilson’s vibrant life, full of possibility, underscores the lifesaving power of gender-affirming care for young people. As a child, Wilson struggled through gender dysphoria and the attendant mental health issues it often causes. She’s horrified by the wave of anti-trans legislation targeting young people like her. In the US, her peers are being demonized by the right, and are left undefended by Democrats. One of Trump’s first executive orders upon retaking office attempted to bar federal funding for health care providers that perform gender-affirming care for young people under 19; multiple federal judges have blocked the order from taking effect for now.
Wilson is compelled to speak out on trans issues, saying, “I don’t feel like people realize that being trans is not a choice.”
She continues, “Obviously, it’s not just trans people that are affected by the current administration,” and mentions “marginalized groups such as undocumented immigrants and people of color. [I’m] really trying to do more advocacy on that front, since the current administration has kind of been like a wrecking ball in that regard.”
Wilson recently caught up with Teen Vogue via Zoom from Tokyo, where she’s now studying. She’s just as much of a firecracker in conversation as she is online. For the duration of our lengthy conversation, she sits cross-legged on the floor of her dorm room, her straight, blonde hair falling well past her shoulders. We bounce between trans gossip, overly online discourse, her unusual extended family, and what she describes as our “cartoonishly evil” new government.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Vivian Jenna Wilson: There was one night, it was 11:00 p.m., and I was like, I know for a fact I am trans. I had known for a few months at that point, and I was like, I cannot f**king do this anymore. That was the point where puberty was really picking up and everything in my life was completely falling apart. I was constantly having mental breakdowns in the middle of class. I could not get through days. I didn’t want to wake up, I didn’t want to do anything. I just wanted to rot, pretty much. It was like, I cannot do this anymore. If I stay in the closet anymore, this is going to take me down a very destructive path.
I posted it on my public Instagram story [two days] before I told my mom. I do regret that — if I were to do it again, she deserves to be the first one to know. But yeah, that is how I came out. I said, “I’m trans. She/her pronouns.”
Then in a different little text at the bottom-left of the picture was, “Are you Team Peeta or are you Team Gale?” This was in the middle of my Hunger Games [phase] that lasted, like, eight years —like four years after the movies came out. I was cringe. I have never not been cringe.
VW: I am Team Peeta, obviously. Gale killed Katniss’s sister. F**k that b*tch.
VW: She was very supportive of my transition. She is a published writer of supernatural romance fiction, which is where I get all my Vivian-isms, of being cringe and chronically online. When I came out to her, she was like, “Yeah, that figures.” She kind of [pieced it together], so when I came out, she pretended to be slightly surprised for 30 seconds and then was like, “Yeah, honey. Okay.”
VW: No, he was not as supportive as my mom. First of all, I had not talked to him in months — in months — so I had to get f**king parental consent to get testosterone blockers and [hormone replacement therapy].
VW: Yes. She’s been supportive of the choices that I have made in college, about being public. She kind of was like, “Well, I can’t stop you, so whatever.” Does it stress her out? Yes. But she’s ultimately fine with it. [Editor’s note: Wilson’s mother, a novelist and short story author, wrote a viral 2010 essay for Marie Claire under the byline Justine Musk about the dissolution of her marriage; “warning signs” in their relationship, she wrote, included the fact that Elon told her he was “the alpha in this relationship” while they danced at their wedding.]
VW: I don’t like saying that I’m famous because I want to do something more to deserve that fame. I want to do something to truly earn the level of attention that I have been getting because… I’m very aware of the fact that it was for reasons. I’m famous for my lore.
VW: I don’t know, because I don’t think it’s something I’ve fully digested yet. I don’t feel like it’s something that I’ve fully… what’s the word?
VW: Processed! I don’t know, I’m just writing my little Threads and my little Bluesky [posts], and sometimes I make little videos, and then they sometimes get views. I ratioed Mark Zuckerberg, though. That was the one time I felt like, I am the f**king queen!
VW: I am the Queen of Threads; that’s my branding. I have a Bluesky, but “Queen of Bluesky” doesn’t have the same ring to it. I think my relationship with social media is fairly healthy. I have a TikTok account, but I actually don’t watch TikTok. I haven’t for years. The only social media that I actively use in my day-to-day are Bluesky and Threads. Or YouTube.
VW: Girl, no. If I had a social media team, they would quit within a week. I just go on my phone, I tip-tap-type my messages, and then sometimes they make the news.
VW: [Laughing] “Posting talent” is sending me. B*tch, I don’t know.
I don’t know if I’m good at social media — I don’t know if I would go that far. I make posts. Sometimes people like them and sometimes people don’t. My target audience is me. If I laugh, then I’ll think, Oh, maybe some other people will laugh — and if they don’t, I don’t give a f**k.
Something I’ve had to work on is, as I’ve grown a bigger platform, you have to push away that anxiety of, Oh, a lot of people are going to see this.
VW: Well, I have four of them. I’m tied for oldest. But when we fought, it wasn’t really with words. There was a lot of… I have four siblings. We’re going to leave it at that, honey.
VW: That’s a question. I will say I do not actually know how many siblings I have, if you include half-siblings. That’s just a fun fact. It’s really good for two truths and a lie. I found out about the Shivon Zilis thing the same time everyone else did. I had no idea before that.
I found out about Grimes having a second child because a drag queen posted about it on Reddit. For a time, me and Grimes were not really in communication because I wasn’t in communication with anyone in that family, which still holds true. Tatianna from RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 2 and RuPaul’s Drag Race: All-Stars 2 tweeted, “[Not] Grimes popp[in] out another axolotl,” which made the front-page of the RuPaul’s Drag Race subreddit, which is how I found out about it. [Editor’s note: Wilson says she found out about Musk’s reported child with St. Clair the same way, joking, “If I had a nickel for every time I found out I had half-siblings through Reddit, I’d have two nickels.”] Are we going to get into drama?
VW: I don’t keep up with that side of the family because… I don’t. My mom doesn’t really either. She’s divorced, werk. So yeah. I don’t really give a f**k what they do. This is not my problem, okay? I’ve seen X once, when he was very little.
VW: They’re not funny. You have to be funny. Most of them have the charisma of a soaking bathrobe. I mean, it’s not my fault that most of them don’t know how to be funny. It’s not that hard.
VW: That’s my question as well, because I would like to know. I don’t understand how someone can be so horrendously bad at everything involving social skills. Stand-up is one thing, but if you can’t tell a joke, if you can’t be witty, if you can’t make anyone laugh… Just be funny!
VW: No. I’m just saying what I feel. I think activism is a little bit more than that.
I do feel obligated to talk about trans issues. As someone who did transition as a minor, I feel like there’s so much villainization of that, and I would really like to raise awareness of the fact that trans care for minors, especially puberty blockers, is really, really important. So maybe stop demonizing these literal children or the people around these children who are just trying to help them to feel comfortable in their own skin.
We’ve seen such vicious attacks on trans minors, and it’s really important that we protect our trans youth and do all that we can, especially in this increasingly hostile political landscape.
VW: I don’t know if it’s been for the better. While queer people and marginalized communities have increased levels of visibility, we also have things like the alt-right pipeline and communities like 4chan, where radicalization has become easier than ever, and that is increasingly concerning.
But social media can also be incredibly informative. Double-check everything, obviously, but it can be a really good way to raise awareness for certain issues. I feel like we saw this with Palestine and Gaza last year, where a lot of people initially found out about that issue from social media. It’s a really complicated question.
VW: In terms of politics? No. It’s terrifying. Every time I open my phone to read the news, I kind of just stare at the wall for 10 minutes. It’s horrifying what they’re doing, not only to the trans community, but also to migrants, to communities of color, to so many marginalized communities that are being systematically targeted by the new administration and having protections revoked. It’s cartoonishly evil.
VW: No, it doesn’t. It really doesn’t. I mean, I’ll see things about him in the news and think, That’s f**king cringe, I should probably post about this and denounce it, which I have done a few times.
The Nazi salute sh*t was insane. Honey, we’re going to call a fig a fig, and we’re going to call a Nazi salute what it was. That sh*t was definitely a Nazi salute. The crowd is equally to blame, and I feel like people are not talking about that. That crowd should be denounced.
But other than that, I don’t give a f**k about him. I really don’t. It’s annoying that people associate me with him. I just don’t have any room to care anymore. When I initially did the whole thing, when he came for me, the Jordan Peterson interview, that was the most cathartic moment of my entire life by far. I had all this pent-up energy, I had wanted to speak out for so long after being [essentially] defamed in a book, after being doxxed. Everything that had gone on — especially in my childhood — when that finally happened, it was the most cathartic experience I have ever had. And then I was like, Okay, whatever. [Editor’s note: Musk did not respond to Teen Vogue’s request for comment. Wilson said that her address and other personal information have been made public online.]
VW: He’s a pathetic man-child. Why would I feel scared of him? Ohhh, he has so much power. Nah, nah, nah. I don’t give a f**k. Why should I be scared of this man? Because he’s rich? Oh, no, I’m trembling. Ooh, shivering in my boots here. I don’t give a f**k how much money anyone has. I don’t. I really don’t. He owns Twitter. Okay. Congratulations.
People thrive off of fear. I’m not giving anyone that space in my mind. The only thing that gets to live free in my mind are drag queens.
VW: He had an agenda when writing his book, which was to make Elon look good, or look more complex than he is. In order to do that, he needed to villainize the trans teenager and make it seem like there were two reasonable sides to the story. (Isaacson did not respond to Teen Vogue’s request for comment.)
VW: I’m a leftist, not a Marxist. I describe myself by the things that I personally believe in and the things that I feel are pretty common sense, if you think about it for more than two seconds. I believe in [universal basic income]. I believe in free health care. I believe food, shelter, and water are human rights. I believe that wealth inequality is one of the biggest problems of the United States right now, especially of our generation. I feel like workers should be fairly compensated for the work that they do, and I don’t feel like wealth should be hoarded by these mega-billionaires who are the top 1%, who only have their own interests at heart. I’ve met some of these billionaires — they’re not very good people. I don’t think any of them are.
VW: If one of the sides of the political spectrum is like, “Trans people are men who are invading women’s spaces to whatever,” and they’re trying to take away trans health care and trans rights and trying to minimize our visibility, and one of the sides is like, “No,” [then] it kind of has to. If you are trans and conservative, you are voting against your own interests.… But I am also 20 years old. I am constantly shifting and evolving. I’m never going to be conservative, obviously, but I feel like everyone’s politics change.
VW: Seeing that kind of wealth — extravagant wealth — firsthand, while living in Los Angeles and seeing the [huge] homelessness problem, the wealth gap… You start to wonder, How is this fair? You have to inevitably come to the conclusion it’s not. There is no world in which people should be owning multiple private planes, private islands, private whatever, while other people are sleeping on the street.
VW: I’m going to not answer that. I’m sorry. But [his views are] not because of me.
It’s such a convenient narrative, that the reason he turned right is because I’m a f**king tr*nny, and that’s just not the case. That’s not what that does to people. 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. That’s insane.
Someone’s Twitter profile is not who they are in reality. Your perception of someone is a very small glance of what they’re choosing to let you into. To judge everything a person says or someone says online as what they really believe is dumb.
I haven’t talked to him since 2020. That was almost half a decade ago at this point. Thank God.
VW: As a trans woman, I am terrified of losing access to guaranteed medical care. If I didn’t medically transition at the age I did, I don’t know what would’ve happened. I don’t feel like people realize that being trans is not a choice. I’m so sorry to break it to you.
Transitioning as a minor was something that was medically necessary for me to do in order to be not suicidal, and it is really important that we protect access to trans care for trans youth.
[Editor’s note: A 2024 study from the Trevor Project found that young people in states that passed anti-trans youth legislation saw increases in rates of attempted suicide. And, according to recently released 2024 survey data from the nonprofit, 39% of trans and nonbinary youth in Wilson’s home state of California “seriously considered suicide” in the last year, with 14% attempting it. Conversely, multiple studies have found that transgender youth accessing gender-affirming care and hormone replacement therapy improves mental health and decreases rates of depression.]
VW: I’m going to quote [YouTuber] ContraPoints: “Stay strong, sister. Don’t let the bastards get you down.” Don’t let other people’s perceptions of you affect your own. Don’t be ashamed of being trans in a world that constantly tries to make us ashamed of who or what we are.
My transness is not an asterisk to my personhood. I value the trans community so much. I value the queer community. I value trans history and queer history and queer culture and all of that to such a high degree, and I would never want to distance myself from any of that.
Before I became famous, I had this really wonderful community online with seven of my friends who I met through a different community. We formed our own little clique. We still chat every night, we have for years.
People really devalue the worth of online friendships, and they mean the absolute world to me. [Wilson starts to cry.] Why is this the thing that causes me to cry? Some of the people I’m closest to are people I’ve never actually met in real life because they live hundreds or thousands of miles away.
VW: I’ve constantly been checking up on my friends, who have also been checking up on me. I’ve tried to delve into the things I’m interested in more. And that’s really all you can do.
I’m really interested in drag. I love drag. I have such an appreciation for the art form, and I would love to participate in the LA scene sometime. It’s on my bucket list to win a drag pageant.
VW: I think I would be a drag king. I think that would be more fun. But I feel like I would kind of want to do both. Honestly, what if I was a femboy drag king? I would eat that up.
VW: Okay, so the first number I would want to do is — and I know it’s kind of a cliché — but the iconic cerulean speech from The Devil Wears Prada. I would just gradually reveal more and more cerulean, and just live my Meryl Streep fantasy. I’m obsessed with that movie.
VW: Hi, Anna Wintour!
Teen Vogue has long covered trans rights and anti-trans politics. We hope to serve as a resource for trans youth amid escalating attacks on their access to healthcare and other basic rights. See more of our existing coverage here, or by using the search bar at the top of our site.
If you or someone you know is experiencing a crisis, there is help available. You can call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, where a trained counselor can talk to you and connect you with further resources. In addition, you can find out more about what to do if you’re experiencing suicidal thoughts here.
Photographer Andy Jackson
Photo Assistant Chris Quyen
Stylist Shunji Sawai
Styling Assistant Hanako Nomura
Makeup Artist Kazuhiro Takenaka at Haco Management
Hair Stylist Kazuhiro Naka
Manicurist Kurumi
Production SHOKUPAN.INC
EP Debbie Pan
Producer Shunya Watanabe
Production Coordinator SAMMI LI
Location Coordinator Adriana Bosnjak
Production Assistant Marine Nabeshima
Production Assistant Ayaka Kojima
Design Director Emily Zirimis
Designer Liz Coulbourn
Writer Ella Yurman
Editor in Chief Versha Sharma
Executive Editor Dani Kwateng
Politics Director Allegra Kirkland
News + Politics Editor Lex McMenamin
Features Director Brittney McNamara
Associate Director of Audience Development & Analytics Mandy Velez Tatti
Research Editor Cris Sada
Researcher Shayna Posses
