Elon Musk’s daughter calls him an absent father
Want to do some Musk math? Here you go: There are 24 hours in a day, and even the most superhuman among us needs to get some sleep. Elon Musk, unless he’s figured out how to clone himself, is just one person. He has at least 12 children with multiple women. His first child died tragically as a baby, and two of his children are now adults, but he has six children under the age of five. He also runs six companies and oversees more than 130,000 people around the world. And he spends an inordinate amount of his life tweeting. Given such a busy life, how does the billionaire spend so much time with his kids?
He’s not, is the short answer. Basic math should tell you that — but Elon Musk’s daughter told us that, too. On Thursday, the billionaire’s 20-year-old transgender daughter, Vivian Wilson, painted a very unflattering portrait of Musk as a father on Threads. (Threads is Twitter’s version of Meta.) Wilson said her father was never around when she was growing up, and when he was, he relentlessly bullied her for being “feminine and gay.” The 20-year-old, whose mother, Justine Wilson, divorced Musk in 2008, expanded on those comments in an interview with NBC News, calling her father “uncaring and narcissistic.”
Wilson, who legally dropped the Elon Musk name in 2022, has so far remained largely out of the public eye. But she spoke out because her father left her with virtually no other choice. In a recent rambling interview with right-wing professor and beefcake enthusiast Jordan Peterson, Musk launched into a disturbing anti-trans rant about his daughter. The tech mogul claimed he was “tricked” into letting Vivian undergo gender reassignment treatment when she was 16. He went on to call gender reassignment treatment “infant mutilation” and gave his daughter a death-dealing name.
“My son… is dead. Killed by the mental awakening virus,” Musk told Peterson. That would be a horrible thing to say under any circumstances, but it’s even more horrible when you consider that Musk has suffered the death of a child: His first son, Nevada, died at just 10 weeks of sudden infant death syndrome.
Musk didn’t stop there. After Peterson’s interview, he took to X, where he “informed” his 191 million followers that his daughter “was born gay and mildly autistic, both of which contribute to gender dysphoria.” He added that he knew Wilson was gay because she loved musicals when she was four and would pick out jackets for him that she called “fabulous.” All the hallmarks of being gay, of course! Musk concluded by saying, “She wasn’t a girl.”
Wilson later fired back on Threads that the stories about the clothes and musicals were made up. “It’s all completely made up and there’s a reason for it. He doesn’t know what I was like as a kid because he just wasn’t there,” Wilson said. “I’ve been reduced to this happy little stereotype,” she continued. “I think that speaks volumes about how he views queer people and kids in general.”
That’s certainly the case, though it doesn’t tell us much we didn’t already know. Elon Musk, who controls a hugely influential media platform, has a long history of promoting anti-transgender views. He also likes to share parenting advice with the world. One of the billionaire’s favorite arguments is that there’s a fertility crisis and everyone needs to have more kids. He’s a little more vague about how people without billions in the bank are going to be able to care for all those kids—perhaps because he doesn’t really care about the kids themselves, just interested in producing cannon fodder for capitalism.
This obsession with making babies and seeming disdain for caring for children is widespread on the right. Republicans want to force women to give birth, but they seem to have no interest in the well-being of those children once they leave the womb. Numerous studies show that states with the strictest abortion laws have the lowest support among mothers.
You know what else this episode reveals? How little society expects of fathers. It really infuriates me that so many people don’t seem to care that Musk continues to make such a huge effort to have more children that he spends very little time with. Can you imagine if he were a woman? He would be constantly attacked for not being there for his kids. He would be constantly criticized for being a bad mother. People still expect women to put their children first. As things are slowly changing, society has much lower standards for fathers. All they have to do is change a diaper every now and then and people are ready to crown them Dad of the Year.
The childless cat lady talk is still relevant today
Last week, this newsletter covered JD Vance’s viral comments about “childless cat ladies.” Since then, the remarks have gone even more viral. Jennifer Aniston said she hopes Vance’s daughter never needs IVF in the future. Kamala Harris’ daughter-in-law, Ella Emhoff, also said, “I love all three of my parents.” On Friday, Vance defended his comments, calling them “sarcastic.”
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The week in pawtriarchy
Dogs can sense your stress, according to a new study. And sorry to stress out all you dog owners, but when you’re worried, they get sad. So try to avoid reading the news while your dog is around, right? Or you’ll both go berserk.