Elon Musk’s estranged daughter Vivian Wilson has described her upbringing as “isolated” and “weird” in a new interview about being raised by one of the world’s richest men.
Wilson, who came out as transgender in 2020 and has since unmasked her last name, opened up about her unique childhood in a chat with Cosmopolitan published Wednesday.
“It was a very strange experience and very lonely,” she told the outlet. “The upper classes have their own private schools, social circles, etc.”
Wilson initially attended a prestigious institution called Ad Astra on the SpaceX campus in California, but later transferred to the private Crossroads School in Los Angeles.
“I’ve forgotten a huge amount, but even as a kid I thought, ‘This is a bit cheeky,'” the 21-year-old model recalls. “When I was very young, I remember seeing homeless people and feeling sick to my stomach.”
“People would accuse me of being like a dramatic little kid. But no, I was right about being a dramatic little kid about it,” she continued.
In addition to feeling “isolated” and “strange,” Wilson also noticed a “preference for wealth,” a “certain detachment from reality itself,” and a “fantasy that I was entitled to wealth while people were sleeping on the streets.”
Still, Musk’s estranged daughter admitted that she was “a rich kid” and that she “shouldn’t lecture anyone about materialism.”
Elsewhere in the interview with the magazine, Wilson said she had witnessed money “corrupt” those around her.
“I’ve seen firsthand that that’s not the case,” she asserted. “It will change you, and the lust for power corrupts people from within. It’s like a cartoon.”
Wilson continued, “Achieving that and wanting more is a never-ending cycle of greed and gluttony, and nothing is ever enough and you feel kind of insane. It turns you into someone else. To be honest, that’s one of my biggest fears.”
But she also made sure to downplay her position in life as Musk’s daughter.
“There’s not much I can do about it, so who cares?” Wilson said. “This is part of my story, but it’s not the future of my story.”
Musk welcomed Wilson with his first wife, Justine Wilson, in 2004.
However, the model came out as transgender in 2020 and “disowned” the Tesla billionaire as her father.
Wilson, whose real name is Xavier Alexander Musk, changed his name when he turned 18 in 2022. That same year, she officially applied for a gender change in Los Angeles.
The father-daughter pair have clashed several times since their estrangement in 2020, including when the SpaceX founder claimed he had been “tricked” into allowing Wilson’s transition in 2024 and blamed it on a “wake mind virus.”
“I was tricked into doing this,” he told The Daily Wire at the time. “It wasn’t explained that puberty blockers are actually just fertility drugs.”
Musk continued, “Essentially, I lost my son. The reason they call it ‘deadname’ is because just like your son is dead, my son Xavier is also dead, killed by the woke mind virus.”
Wilson fired back a year later during an interview with Teen Vogue magazine.
“I don’t care about him. I really don’t like him,” she claimed. “It bothers me that people associate me with him. I just can’t care anymore.”
