Elon Musk Says His Transgender Daughter Was "Killed" by the "Woke Mind Virus"

The past few years have been very normal for Elon Musk. (Just kidding.) The Tesla and X CEO has gradually drifted farther and farther toward the right wing, and many have long speculated that that may have happened in part because one of his children is transgender.

In a new interview, Elon all but confirmed that was the case and also managed to misgender and deadname his daughter several times. Here's what we know about what happened to Elon's child and the state of their relationship today.

Nothing at all happened to Elon's child except that she transitioned, and he apparently didn't like that. In an interview with right-wing influencer Jordan Peterson, Elon explained his perspective on what happened.

In the interview, he described gender-reassignment surgery as "child mutilation and sterilization," so very normal and chill.

From there, he got more specific about his daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson, who underwent the procedure during the pandemic.

"I was essentially tricked into signing documents for one of my older boys," Elon said, deadnaming and misgendering Vivian throughout the interview. "This was really before I had any understanding of what was going on, and we had COVID going on, so there was a lot of confusion and I was told (Musk's child) might commit suicide."

Elon said that the process is done to children who are "far below the age of consent," and that anyone who promotes the practice should be prosecuted.

"I was tricked into doing this," he said. "I lost my son, essentially. They call it 'deadnaming' for a reason. The reason they call it ‘deadnaming’ is because your son is dead."

Elon lost a son, Nevada, in 2002, when the infant died of sudden infant death syndrome or SIDS.

Prior to Vivian's transition, Elon's politics were a strange miasma of different opinions, and he didn't seem to firmly support either party consistently. After her transition, though, he seems to have morphed into a kind of right wing warrior.

"I vowed to destroy the woke mind virus after that," Elon said during his interview with Jordan. "And we’re making some progress."

Vivian Jenna Wilson completely cut ties from her father in 2022 and changed her name because of her dislike for him.

"I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form," Vivian said in her petition to have her name and gender formally changed.

Her father, meanwhile, appears to have purchased Twitter in large part because he felt that it was a place where he could have great influence on the world of politics.

For all of his attacks on gender-affirming care, strong scientific evidence suggests that it is a method of care that saves lives for those who need it. It's also not the case that gender-affirming care is undergone flippantly or that the doctors involved don't take careful steps with their patients. Transgender people like Vivian exist, and Elon's greatest frustration is that he cannot keep that from being the case.