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Elon Musk's daughter Vivian slams Walter Isaacson's Musk biography, saying it portrays her as her father's 'villain backstory'

Aug 13, 2024, 18:41 IST
Business Insider
Elon Musk's daughter Vivian Wilson said Musk's biographer Walter Isaacson, right, portrayed her "in a light that is genuinely defamatory."Anna Moneymaker via Getty Images; Rosdiana Ciaravolo via Getty Images
  • Elon Musk's daughter Vivian criticized Walter Isaacson's Musk biography over its portrayal of her.
  • She called the book "one of the most humiliating experiences of my entire life."
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Vivian Wilson, Elon Musk's daughter, isn't happy with how she says she was depicted in Walter Isaacson's best-selling biography about her father.

Wilson slammed the biography in a series of social-media posts Sunday night.

"To Walter Isaacson, you threw me to the wolves in what was one of the most humiliating experiences of my entire life," Wilson wrote in a series of Threads posts.

Wilson said Isaacson's book portrayed her "in a light that is genuinely defamatory" and positioned her and her father as opposing forces.

"I was treated as a VILLAIN BACKSTORY-ORIGIN to excuse or explain away his behavior," Wilson wrote.

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Representatives for Musk, Wilson, Isaacson, and his publisher, Simon & Schuster, didn't respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Wilson and Musk's strained relationship was mentioned several times in Isaacson's book.

Musk told the author that his disagreements with Wilson, who is transgender, "became intense when she went beyond socialism to being a full communist and thinking that anyone rich is evil," according to the book.

Isaacson wrote that Musk learned of Wilson's transition from a secondhand source.

"I've made many overtures but she doesn't want to spend time with me," Musk told Isaacson in the book, adding that the rift with his daughter was as painful as the death of his firstborn son, Nevada.

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Wilson legally changed her name in 2022, citing a desire to better reflect her gender identity and to no longer "be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form."

On Sunday, Wilson also wrote on Threads that Isaacson didn't contact her directly for comment after spending months trailing Musk as research for the book. Wilson said she learned about the book a month before its September release last year.

Isaacson told NBC News in July that he'd reached out to Wilson via family members.

Isaacson's book contains quotes about Wilson from Musk's then-partner, Grimes; his brother Kimbal's wife, Christiana; and Musk's right-hand man Jared Birchall — but there are no quotes from Wilson.

She has had plenty to say recently, though, about her father.

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Last month, in an interview with NBC News' David Ingram, Wilson said Musk was a cruel and absent father.

"He was cold," Wilson said. "He's very quick to anger. He is uncaring and narcissistic."

The interview with Wilson was published days after Musk made anti-trans comments about her on July 22, saying she was "dead, killed by the woke mind virus," and repeatedly misgendering her.

"I think he was under the assumption that I wasn't going to say anything and I would just let this go unchallenged," Wilson told Ingram. "Which I'm not going to do, because if you're going to lie about me, like, blatantly to an audience of millions, I'm not just gonna let that slide."

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