Elon Musk’s transgender daughter seeks name change: ‘I no longer wish to be related to my biological father’
The 18-year-old has filed a request to change her name in accordance with her new gender identity and her desire to sever ties with the Tesla founder
Elon Musk’s transgender daughter has filed a request to change her name in accordance with her new gender identity and because “I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.”
The petition for both a name change and a new birth certificate reflecting her new gender identity was filed with the Los Angeles County Superior Court in Santa Monica in April. It came to light recently in some online media reports.
The former Xavier Alexander Musk, who recently turned 18, the age of consent in California, has asked the court to change her gender recognition from male to female and to register her new name, according to court documents available online through PlainSite.org.
The 18-year-old has not publicly disclosed her new name, but according to celebrity website TMZ, she wishes to be called Vivian Jenna Wilson, after her mother, writer Justine Wilson. The reason for the name change in the documents is stated as: “Gender Identity and the fact that I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.”
There was no further explanation of the rift between Musk’s daughter and her father, the Tesla and SpaceX chief who is attempting a $44 billion takeover of social media platform Twitter. Neither a lawyer who represents Musk nor the Tesla media office immediately responded to Reuters emails requesting comment on Monday.
But there are suspicions the rift may be connected to Elon Musk’s views on trans rights. In 2020, he tweeted: “I absolutely support trans, but all these pronouns are an esthetic nightmare.” In May – a month after the name change petition was filed – Musk announced he would vote for the Republican Party in the midterms in November, even though the group has fiercely campaigned to limit the rights of transgender people in the US.
Musk – who is worth $219 billion, according to Forbes magazine – has seven children. The former Xavier Alexander Musk was born in 2004, and is one of the five children that Musk had with Justine Wilson, to who he was married from 2000 to 2008. Musk has another two children with the singer Grimes, who was with the Tesla founder from 2018 to last September. One of their children was called X Æ A-12, but the couple was forced to change it shortly as the state of California does not allow numbers in names.
On June 19, Father’s Day in the United States, Musk tweeted: “I love all my kids so much.” But while the Tesla founder is very active on social media, he shares very few images or messages about his private life, including his family. At social events, such as the Met Gala in May, he is often accompanied by his mother, the model Maye Musk. But he does not have a good relationship with his father Errol Musk, who recently admitted in an interview that he had not seen his son for six years.