Pride Month, marked around the world throughout June, has again filled fashion feeds with rainbow-themed collections and campaigns. One of the most talked-about this week comes from Rihanna’s lingerie brand Savage x Fenty, starring transgender model and activist Vivian Jenna Wilson, the estranged daughter of Elon Musk.
Wilson, 22, appears in the brand’s new Pride campaign wearing pieces from a capsule collection built around LGBTQ pride and inclusivity, including garments printed with slogans such as “Queer” and “Love Us Loud.” The campaign, created in partnership with GLAAD, also features other LGBTQ models and marks another step in Wilson’s fast-moving entry into fashion.
It is not her first appearance for the brand. Earlier this year, Wilson appeared in Savage x Fenty’s Valentine’s Day campaign, alongside Rihanna and other models. But the Pride campaign arrives at a moment when Wilson is no longer just a famous surname appearing in a fashion shoot. She has become one of the most closely watched new figures in fashion, both because of her family background and because she has turned public attention into a platform for talking about trans rights, politics and her relationship with her father.
Since making her runway debut at Prabal Gurung’s New York Fashion Week show in September, Wilson has been embraced by an industry that knows the value of a compelling biography. She has since appeared in high-profile fashion contexts, including runway shows and magazine covers, and has been profiled by major outlets including Teen Vogue and The Cut.
Her rise also places her in the familiar territory of the nepo-baby conversation. Wilson is tall, blond and striking, but the fashion industry’s fascination with her is not only about looks. It is also about the contradiction at the center of her public image: the daughter of one of the richest men in the world, insisting that she wants no part of his fortune or his name.
‘I don’t have that inheritance’
Wilson was born in 2004, one of six children from Musk’s marriage to author Justine Wilson. Musk has several other children with other women, and his large, complex family has become a recurring subject of public attention.
Wilson came out as transgender as a teenager and began her transition while still in high school. In 2022, shortly after turning 18, she petitioned a California court to legally change her name and gender. In the petition, she wrote that she no longer wished to be related to her biological father “in any way, shape or form.”
She adopted her mother’s last name and has repeatedly made clear that the decision was not symbolic only. Her relationship with Musk had already deteriorated, and she has said in interviews that he was largely absent from her upbringing and was not as supportive of her transition as her mother.
Wilson has lived in Los Angeles and later moved to Tokyo to study Japanese. In The Cut, she described a life far more ordinary than many assume for the child of the world’s richest man: roommates, school plans, language studies and financial concerns.
She told The Cut that college is expensive and said, “I don’t have that inheritance.” The same interview described her as eager to save money and careful not to rely too heavily on her mother, even as she acknowledged the unusual privilege of her background.
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Vivian Wilson modeling in a Gucci fashion show, 2026
(Photo: JP Yim/Getty Images for Gucci)
Wilson has pushed back at the assumption that Musk’s wealth is available to her. She has said that people imagine she has huge sums at her disposal, while in reality she lives far closer to an ordinary young adult trying to build a career. She has also said she is not interested in becoming extremely wealthy, describing food, friends, housing and some disposable income as enough, and more than many people her age in Los Angeles have.
That distinction is now central to her public image. Wilson is not presenting herself as a self-made outsider, but she is trying to separate her career and identity from the man whose name made the world notice her in the first place.
A public feud with Musk
Musk, the man behind Tesla, SpaceX and X, has not stayed silent about the estrangement. In a 2024 conversation with conservative psychologist Jordan Peterson, Musk repeatedly referred to Wilson by her former name and claimed she had been “killed by the woke mind virus.”
The comments set off a new public round in a family dispute that had already been shaped by politics, gender identity and Musk’s increasingly right-wing public persona.
Wilson responded on social media and later in interviews, rejecting Musk’s account of her childhood and transition. She has said he appeared to assume she would stay silent while he spoke about her to millions of people, and she has described his version of their relationship as false.
In Teen Vogue, Wilson said her online style was shaped by years in queer internet spaces. “I have a sharp tongue,” she said, explaining that online queer communities taught her to respond quickly, be funny and hit back with wit.
That voice has become part of her brand. Wilson uses Threads, Bluesky, Instagram and TikTok, and her posts regularly become news items. She is not afraid of confrontation, especially when she believes Musk or his supporters are misrepresenting her.
At the same time, Wilson has said she does not want her father to dominate her life. She has described the public association with Musk as frustrating and said she does not want him occupying mental space that should belong to her own future.
Fashion, politics and visibility
Wilson’s modeling career comes as transgender visibility is being fought over in politics, media and culture. She is aware that her starting point is different from that of many other trans women, including those facing workplace discrimination, political attacks and physical violence. Still, she has framed her visibility as something that can be useful.
In Teen Vogue, Wilson said she feels a responsibility to speak about trans issues because she transitioned as a minor and knows how demonized that experience has become. She argued that care for trans youth, including puberty blockers, is important and said young people should not be turned into political villains for seeking help.
She has also spoken broadly about the political climate in the United States, describing the Trump administration’s attacks on trans people, immigrants, people of color and other marginalized groups as “cartoonishly evil.”
Unlike many influencers who avoid direct political identification, Wilson is blunt about her views. She has criticized the right, rejected the idea that Musk’s political turn was caused by her transition and said she has no patience for narratives that make her identity the explanation for his politics.
She has also criticized Musk’s public behavior. After the controversy over his raised-arm gesture at a political event, Wilson said the gesture should be called a “Nazi salute,” and faulted the crowd as well.
Her willingness to speak in such direct terms is part of what makes her both compelling and controversial. She is not simply a model attached to a Pride campaign. She is a young public figure turning fashion visibility into a broader argument about identity, politics and who gets to define her story.
Refusing the role of Musk’s daughter
Wilson’s public life is still partly shaped by the contradiction she cannot fully escape: the more she tries to define herself outside Musk’s orbit, the more headlines describe her through him.
The fashion industry has offered one path out. Magazine covers, runway appearances and campaigns allow her to become visible as Vivian Wilson, not only as Elon Musk’s estranged daughter. But even there, the family connection remains a commercial and media force.
Wilson seems aware of the tension. She has said she wants to earn the attention she is receiving, not merely inherit it through biography. She has also expressed interest in several possible futures, including modeling, influencing, streaming and language work.
For now, the most visible path is fashion. The Savage x Fenty Pride campaign places her in a brand built on inclusivity and body confidence, and it does so at the exact moment when Wilson’s own story has become a culture-war flashpoint.
That may be why the campaign has generated so much attention. Wilson is not only modeling lingerie. She is modeling a kind of refusal: refusing Musk’s version of events, refusing the assumption that she wants his money, refusing to be quiet about politics and refusing to let the public decide that her father’s name is the most important thing about her.
In that sense, her new fashion prominence is not a clean break from the family drama. It is the next stage of it, only now Wilson is no longer reacting from the margins. She is standing in front of the camera, on her own terms.