Elon Musk has a transgender daughter who is so angry with the way he has reacted to her transition that she has cut off all ties with him and even changed her last name so that she will not be associated with him. This has not prevented Musk from continuing to criticize her and even repeatedly dead-naming her, most recently when he ranted about her when he spoke with Jordan Petersen and on Twitter/X.
Wilson has issued a statement in a series of posts blasting Musk.
Elon Musk's daughter responds 👇 pic.twitter.com/ZUit7bFdZN
— Snarky Stardust (@HootPhD) July 25, 2024
Jones Wilson says that Musk is lying about her, her childhood, and his role in her life.
Musk posted on Monday that Wilson was “born gay and slightly autistic” and added that as a child, she would “pick out clothes for me to wear like a jacket and tell me it was ‘fabulous!’”
In her response on Threads, Wilson, 20, called the depiction an untrue gay stereotype.
“I never picked out jackets for him to wear and I was most certainly not calling them ‘fabulous’ because literally what the (f**k). I did not use the word fabulous when I was four because once again I would like to reiterate… I was four,” Wilson said.
She added that Musk “doesn’t know what I was like as a child because he quite simply wasn’t there, and in the little time that he was I was relentlessly harassed for my femininity and queerness.”
Musk in recent years has become increasingly enthralled with right-wing politics, sharing anti-immigration, anti-DEI and anti-trans posts and ideologies on X.
Being the child of reputedly one of the world’s richest people, there would have been strong incentive for Wilson to just suck it up and be silent in the hope of getting some of that money. It takes a lot of guts to so publicly and completely cut ties with her father and it speaks to how awful a parent he must be.
While I respect the role he played in making reusable rockets, there is no getting around the fact he is an utterly vile human being, just as there is no way of getting around the fact Henry Ford was a super-anti-semite.
There is also the Apple guy who was a business genius and a complete asshole. And Edison took credit for other people’s ideas. And… the list goes on.
Who is “Jones”? Because of the 3rd person, it’s unclear if you’re actually meaning to say Wilson herself — who did indeed say the things you quote — or if you’re referring to someone writing an article about what Wilson said and repeating the repetition of Wilson’s words.
Further, I’m not mad or anything, I don’t think you’re doing anything evil or even unethical. But I do note that you’re linking to @HootPHD (Snarky Stardust) on X rather than to Wilson herself on threads.
In invite people to think about what it would be like to have a parent send out a message to over 100 million people, through a social media app they own, containing a video of that parent insulting you and lying about you.
Would you want his site, X, to get even more traffic? Probably not.
Wilson, I am sure, would love to be able to escape her father’s words, but she can’t. Not only was the original video shared incredibly widely on X, but then website after website repeated Musk’s words.
This post does not do that, and for that I’m grateful. You’re linking to someone who is commenting on what Wilson said, not what Musk said. And that’s a good and reasonable thing. Again, nothing ethically wrong with this.
But ethically fine is not the same as morally laudable, and if I may be so bold I think the best thing would have been to link directly to Wilson herself. When the original problem is that someone else (her father) is speaking for her and controlling how the world sees her, then I think the best corrective action isn’t to link to someone who filters Wilson’s words but does so more accurately than Musk has ever done (or even attempted). I think the best corrective action is to link to Wilson’s **unfiltered** words.
Those words, not accidentally, are not found on X because part of her message is that she doesn’t support Musk’s income or influence through driving traffic to his site.
Anyway, thanks for not repeating Musk, but do consider what role Jones plays (whoever Jones is) and whether it might not be better to simply link Wilson.
@CripDyke #2:
But after all that you didn’t link to Wilson on threads either?
I’m not on X or threads, but here’s the link to her profile fwiw: https://www.threads.net/@vivllainous?hl=en
Good criticism.
Crip Dyke @#2,
I am not sure why I put the name ‘Jones’ when I meant to write ‘Wilson’. I have corrected it.
What Musk is doing here is bullying his Trans daughter. He has bullied her for her entire life and is still doing it now, even though she is a 20 year old adult who has made it clear she doesn’t want Musk any where near her.
This is appallingly sick and evil behavior from Musk!!!
Made worse by the tremendous power imbalance between the two. It’s not like Vivian Wilson owns her own media outlet like for example….X
It’s clear that Musk was and is a child abusing parent. It’s becoming clear that Musk is also an abuser of adults.
Xpost from Pharyngula.
One thing stands out here.
Vivian Wilson is a very brave person.
The power imbalance between one of the richest people in the world Elon Musk, and his 20 year old Trans daughter is immense.
And Musk is the creepy weird guy who can and will retaliate against his own children for who they are instead of what Musk wanted them to be.
He’s already started doing that.
Musk bullied her in the past and he is bullying her right now.
Yet again, another example of GOP family values.
I used to fairly regularly read what was, at the time, a really good website called “Wait But Why”, which would do deep dives into interesting subject accompanied by stick figure drawings. It was a good time.
I keep thinking I’ll get in touch with the author and ask him how he thinks age has affected the series of articles he did on Musk in 2015, which he titled “The World’s Raddest Man”. But I don’t, because the response would almost certainly disappoint. Evidence: the article is still up, so I assume he’s not ashamed of it: https://waitbutwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Musk-Raddest-Man-Final-PDF-Preview.pdf
“While I respect the role he played in making reusable rockets…”
By being in charge of the company doing it? It’s not a role that can’t be replaced by any number of other mediocre money men.
@ 8 Tabby Lavalamp
I understand your dismissiveness. But on the other hand it wasn’t incidental. Musk had a goal of making reusability a thing and persevered through a lot of failures. Just because a person is overall a shit human being doesn’t mean that never did *anything* worthwhile.
Those worthwhile things #QElon did — or rather, bought credit for “doing” — were done via a company fuelled by GOVERNMENT money and GOVERNMENT demand.
Also, #QElon did not “make reusability a thing.” It was a thing long before he bought his way into the limelight. Ever heard of the space-shuttle?
From the article cited by sonofrojblake @7:
I’ll use this post to explore how he became a self-made billionaire and the real-life inspiration for Iron Man’s Tony Stark…
Wow, dudebro, thanks for putting all that stupidity in the first paragraph and saving me a lot of time! First, #QElon is not a “self-made” anything; he started with money inherited from a business using black slave-labor in Apartheid South Africa. And second, Iron Man/Tony Stark were created by Stan Lee LOOOONG before #QElon became famous for anything. Anyone dumb enough to think #QElon inspired Iron Man is…well…a perfect stooge to serve as his stenographer/hagiographer. Or a very clever self-parodist…
PS: I remember watching “Iron Man” cartoons on TV when I was in grade-school. And I’m pretty sure I’m older than #QElon. So no, #QElon didn’t “inspire” Iron Man, or any other superhero I know of.