While her father, Elon Musk, a man of many ventures and 11 children, is regarded as the world’s richest person, with a fortune estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars, his transgender daughter, Vivian Wilson, 21, has chosen to do the unexpected: speak openly about her circumstances and the relative modesty of her life.
In an interview with The Cut, she said her daily reality looks nothing like the glamorous lifestyle most people might imagine when they hear her former last name.
Wilson shares an apartment with three roommates in LA, a choice she says is practical rather than performative. “It’s simply cheaper,” she explained. “People assume I have a lot of money. I don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars at my disposal,” she says. She lives like any other young person of her age.
Before anyone reaches for tissues, it is worth noting that Vivian’s mother is Justine Wilson, a Canadian author who has published a series of paranormal romance novels. Thanks to her commercial success, her net worth is estimated at $15 million, meaning Vivian did not grow up in poverty by any measure. Justine was Musk’s first wife, and the two had children together beginning in 2004.
Vivian acknowledged her mother’s wealth but drew a sharp line between that and her father’s resources. “I don’t have a desire to be superrich", she said. “My mom is rich, right? But obviously the other one (referring to Musk) is unimaginable degrees of wealthy.”
Wilson began her gender transition at 16 and was embraced with love and support by her mother, in contrast to her father’s response.
Her transition was legally recognized in 2022, and since then she has focused on building an independent career. That has included appearances on the covers of major U.S. magazines, as well as public reflections on her life, such as her choice to live in a shared apartment.
She also said she considers herself to have only four “real siblings,” even though Musk is known to have 11 children. Still, she admitted she could not be certain of the exact number.
Wilson’s remarks come against the backdrop of an ongoing estrangement from her father. In recent years she has spoken out against him publicly, calling him a “pathetic man-child,” and legally changed her surname to make clear her desire to distance herself.