Last July, President Elon Musk went on Jordan “That F-cking Guy” Peterson’s podcast. He spouted some absolutely abhorrent rhetoric about his trans daughter, Vivian Wilson, including misgendering her and saying she’d been killed by the “woke mind virus.” Vivian, who came out in 2020, spent the next few weeks reading him for absolute filth, calling him a ”serial adulterer who won’t stop f–king lying about your own children.” Since then, Vivian’s gained an online following – she calls herself the ‘Queen of Threads,’ – and has been pretty outspoken about trans issues and her father.
Right now, Vivian, who turns 21 in April, is studying abroad in Tokyo. She speaks three languages, French, Spanish, and Japanese, and before her father went insane on the world stage, she wanted to be a translator. Vivian is on the cover of this month’s Teen Vogue and her interview covers a range of topics, including coming out, social media, politics, her father, and her many siblings. It’s a lengthy interview that you can read here, and here are some of the highlights:
She’s witty: “I have a sharp tongue. 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.
Elon who?: 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. The only thing that gets to live free in my mind is drag queens.”
Reality show dreamin’: “It is my absolute dream to be on a reality show, which I know is absolutely pathetic. As an overdramatic little queer, reality shows are something I adore beyond belief.”
On trans issues: “I don’t feel like people realize that being trans is not a choice. 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.”
Her mom’s reaction when she came out: “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.””
Her dad’s reaction: “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].”
Her relationship with social media: “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! 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.”
She has no idea how many siblings she has: “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 [Tatianna from RuPaul’s Drag Race] 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. [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.”]
She doesn’t keep in touch with the Musks: 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.
Her opinion of right-wing posters: “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.”
Vivian is clearly incredibly intelligent and grounded despite everything she’s been through. It is wild that people are still trying to make “Elon is a family man” happen when his own children have no idea what he’s doing and how many women he’s busy procreating with. I feel badly for his older children with Justine Musk, who are old enough to understand WTF is going on right now. Since the interview came out, Elno’s continued to dead name her and repeat those stupid “woke mind virus” claims. Good for Vivian for cutting her toxic father out of her life. I hope her brothers are doing the same.
There’s also a really nice quote in the article from Vivian’s mother, Justine, which describes her as always having had “an uncompromising sense of who she is — and who she needs to be. She is big, fierce, wild multi-layered magic.” Vivian may have struck out in the dad department, but it sounds like she’s got a lot of love and support from her mother. I love that for her.