In his forthcoming biography of Elon Musk, author Walter Isaacson reveals that the billionaire’s opposition to all things “woke” has its roots in his daughter’s gender transition.
In an excerpt from Elon Musk published by the Wall Street Journal, Isaacson writes that Musk, the SpaceX founder who bought Twitter and changed its name to X, started railing against what he calls the “woke mind virus” after his daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson came out as transgender at 16 and voiced support for progressive ideologies.
“She went beyond socialism to being a full communist and thinking that anyone rich is evil,” Musk said. “I’ve made many overtures, but she doesn’t want to spend time with me.”
Musk said he believed his daughter’s views were influenced by her education at Crossroads, the school she attended in southern California.
Musk has drawn fire for his comments on transgender people before. In 2020, he posted “Pronouns suck” on X, and this June wrote that the words “cis” and “cisgender” would be considered slurs on the social media platform. He also said that X would not suspend accounts that deliberately use the wrong pronouns to refer to people.
Elon Musk is scheduled for publication on Sept. 12 by Simon & Schuster.
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
