The daughter of the world’s wealthiest individual has opened up about the “isolating” and “bizarre” aspects of growing up surrounded by immense wealth.

Vivian Wilson, the eldest child of Elon Musk and his former wife Justine, publicly identified as transgender at 16 and legally requested to remove Musk from her surname.

Since 2020, she and her father have been estranged.

In a recent interview with Cosmopolitan, Wilson reflects on her upbringing in a household where financial constraints were nonexistent, under the shadow of her billionaire father, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, known for his contentious interactions with former President Trump.

She describes this financial abundance as both a gift and a burden, highlighting its seductive nature that often ensnares the power-driven.

“I’ve witnessed it firsthand. It transforms you, and the lust for power erodes people from within. It’s like something out of a cartoon,” remarked Wilson, who is now 21.

Vivian Wilson, the estranged daughter of Elon Musk, has recalled her ‘strange’ and ‘isolating’ childhood raised in extreme wealth; pictured 2025

Wilson is the daughter of SpaceX and Tesla CEO Musk

‘Achieving that and wanting more is a never-ending cycle of greed and gluttony, where nothing is enough and you kind of go insane. It turns you into someone different. Which is honestly one of my biggest fears.’ 

Wilson, who has rejected the wealth and now advocates for others, recalled just how ‘isolating’ and ‘strange’ her childhood was. 

‘It was a very strange experience, very isolating.…The upper class have their own private schools, social circles, and whatever,’ she said. 

Wilson attended a secret school on the Space X campus, an institute called ‘Ad Astra’, before eventually studying at the private LA school Crossroads. 

As a child, Wilson was distressed by the plight of the less fortunate – a concern deemed ‘dramatic’ by others around her. 

‘I have unlearned a huge amount, but even as a child, I was like, “This is a bit gauche,”‘ Wilson said. “I remember being very young and seeing homelessness and feeling sick to my stomach. 

‘People would get on me for being like a dramatic little child. But no, I was right to be a dramatic little s**t about that.’ 

Wilson is now a model who is forging her own path outside of her father’s shadow

Musk has had a fraught relationship with President Donald Trump after supporting him in his efforts to run for the highest office a second time

According to Wilson, the rich were detached from ‘reality itself.’  

Wilson noticed a ‘level of detachment from reality itself, in favor of wealth and this illusion that you deserve it while people are sleeping on the streets… Oh, and also Santa Claus is real.’

The star has been outspoken about her father, a controversial figure who is no stranger to facing public outrage. 

Yet she has remained detached from the fact she will always be known as Elon’s child.  

‘There’s not much I can do about it, so who cares? It’s part of my story, but it’s not the future of my story,’ she said. 

The Daily Mail has contacted representatives for Musk for comment but did not immediately hear back.  

Musk previously claimed he was ‘tricked’ by the ‘woke mind virus’ into allowing Vivian to transition into a woman.  

Vivian is active on social media and currently boasts one million Instagram followers

‘I was tricked into doing this. It wasn’t explained to me that puberty blockers are actually just sterilization drugs,’ Musk said of Vivian in a 2024 interview with Jordan Peterson for The Daily Wire. 

‘I lost my son, essentially. They call it ‘deadnaming’ for a reason. The reason they call it ‘deadnaming’ is because your son is dead, so my son, Xavier, is dead, killed by the woke mind virus.’

Deadnaming is what transgender people typically refer to others calling them by the name they went by before they began to transition.

‘Then two years later, this guy [Musk] on a podcast called me dead and I was not having it,’ she told Cosmopolitan. ‘So I made a response on Threads and it went mega viral. Everything took off from there.’ 

Vivian briefly opened up about the relationship she has with the tech mogul while talking to Teen Vogue.

‘I don’t give a f*** about him. I really don’t. It’s annoying that people associate me with him. I just don’t have any room to care anymore.’

Vivian is active on social media and currently boasts one million Instagram followers. She often posts insights into her modelling career and takes fans along to events she has attended.