An Interview With Elon Musk’s Daughter Was Months in the Making

Teen Vogue’s rollicking Q&A with Vivian Wilson offered insight into her life, her interests and her feelings about her famous father.

Versha Sharma, the editor in chief of Teen Vogue, said she had started to pay close attention to Vivian Jenna Wilson, the 20-year-old daughter of Elon and Justine Musk, around the time of last fall’s presidential election.

“The more that we started to learn about her from watching her TikToks, or just following her online, we realized that she has a really powerful and interesting and hilarious voice and a way of cutting through the noise with humor,” Ms. Sharma said in a phone interview on Friday.

Ella Yurman, a writer and comedian, was able to set up an interview with Ms. Wilson, leading to her first byline for Teen Vogue, which landed on the cover of a special issue. The interview spread quickly around social media as soon as it was published on Thursday.

In the interview, Ms. Wilson, who is a trans woman, discussed a wide variety of topics, including whether she is famous (“I don’t like saying that I’m famous because I want to do something more to deserve that fame”), her relationship with social media (“I am the Queen of Threads”), her family (“I do not actually know how many siblings I have”) and her politics (“I am constantly shifting and evolving”).

But it was her in-depth discussion of her father that had the internet buzzing as soon as the piece was published. She addressed the debate over his hand gestures at an inaugural event for President Trump in January, saying, “Honey, we’re going to call a fig a fig, and we’re going to call a Nazi salute what it was.” She emphasized that she is financially independent and said she had had no relationship with Mr. Musk since 2020. She said he was “not as supportive as my mom” when she transitioned and began taking testosterone blockers. And she said she is not afraid to speak out against him despite his wealth and influence.

“People thrive off of fear,” she said. “I’m not giving anyone that space in my mind.”