57 Comments
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Joan the Dork's avatar

This? This right here? This is why the world does not need billionaires in it. No single human being should have the power to do this- for any reason, let alone for the sake of further abusing his own offspring after she finally escaped from his clutches.

What. A. Jackass.

Paula W's avatar

Elon is several bricks shy of a full load. He in a bigoted racist, Transphobe and a Homophobe. I love seeing what she writes about him. He can't do anything about it.

Leah Abram's avatar

John Oliver called Vivian Wilson “[Elon Musk’s] coolest child”. I don’t think any better words need to be said!

Paula W's avatar

I wholeheartedly agree.

Elle Garris's avatar

I think we need to use caution in supporting the idea that any of this is Vivian's fault. It was not she who was responsible for the election results, or even the purchase of twitter, or any of Elon's actions. It's hard to imagine how devastating it would be as a trans person to feel that an entire timeline of disaster was in any way related to your transition. I'm pretty sure it would devastate me.

On another note, we now have an admission from Elon that he is so emotionally fragile, so incompetent, so unable to make rational decisions that we should not let that rest for a minute. His reputation should be in tatters for spending 44 billion dollars to create a harmful environment for anyone. but especially for his own daughter.

Some people don't deserve to have wonderful children. Just sayin'.

Erin Reed's avatar

The blame definitely isn't on Vivian. That said, it's important to understand Musk's motivations for buying the platform and how he uses it.

Ken's avatar

I'm wondering how important Elon's motivations really are. Elon could have bought twitter to help Trump and republicans, or to propagandize against some other minority like black people. The result would have been the same. Elon is a bad person as his daughter can clearly see. Elon's parents were also awful so it continues.

Ruxine's avatar

I think he's trying to avoid the repercussions of having bought twitter to rig the election with this statement. He's more than paid for twitter with all the government contracts he's been handed by trump, plus he doesn't have to deal with the epa for the grock datacenter environmental genocide, and he has all that doge data (and it seems like doge just rebranded to "national design studio"). A fight with his daughter is the only reason he's stating because its legal to be a shitty parent and shriveled husk of a man.

Gabrielle's avatar

It is absolutely not Vivian's fault in any way. It's all Elon's fault, since he choose to be hateful and take hateful actions.

Joan the Dork's avatar

Yeah, I gave more than a little side-eye towards that wording as well. She deserves precisely none of the blame for her sperm donor throwing this thermonuclear shitfit- if anything, it makes her escape from him all the more impressive, because the whole world can plainly see how far he'd go, the depths of depravity he'd sink to, just to control her. He'd lay waste to an entire demographic just to hurt her. He is the manifestation of every trans person's worst fears about their conservative parents, cranked up to 11.

Jayna Sheats's avatar

But also representative of nearly every person at the pinnacle of power in the US government - every cabinet secretary, "special assistant," etc.

Just today there is a leading article in "Die Zeit" about Peter Thiel and his influence. The Galactic Empire is at the door...

Max Handelsman's avatar

I'm also side-eyeing the whole idea that it was because of her. He loves to troll people and make shit up just to PwN tEh LiBz, so while restoring the ability to be bigoted on Twitter was probably a big part of it, from watching him I feel like it was more about having his own soapbox (inside an echo chamber) in general.

Max Kuzma's avatar

This is so fundamentally embarrassing, but I think it’s also worth pointing out that Elon’s main issue with trans women is that they often lose their ability to reproduce within the process of transitioning (ie, lower surgery) — and he talks non stop about reproducing and like re-populating the earth with his DNA or whatever. Vivian has implied that her father used sex-selective IVF to determine her birth sex (which I’m sure he’s done with many of his kids), which means that he wanted Vivian to be male in order to carry on his genetic line in a very specific way. So cringe.

eg492's avatar

Well, I'm sure that's part of it, but also he's a raging misogynist and can't deal with her rejecting what he sees as the source of his superiority.

If a person who's born with maleness can reject it, that throws the misogynist's entire worldview into question.

catsongs's avatar

This is the most potent illustration of why the phenomenon of "billionaire" should not exist. The power and influence wielded by this one twisted egomaniac over a personal issue is only possible because of his accumulation and hoarding of obscene wealth.

Freddie Baudat's avatar

Also, can we get campaign finance reform, already?

Elle Garris's avatar

Sure! Hold my estrogen...

Freddie Baudat's avatar

Oh my. I haven’t heard that line before. 🤣 Thank you! 🙏

Freddie Baudat's avatar

Justin Wolfer’s made this exact point in a recent conversation that’s posted on Substack: https://platypuseconomics.substack.com/p/the-gulfstream-economy-how-flattery?r=5k9s3t&utm_medium=ios

In it he talks about anything over $100,000,000 (or even less) has no purpose whatsoever other than power—to be able to buy power and governance over others.

Zoey's avatar

Also beside the point, but why are you commenting on a repost of your daughter wearing lingerie? Gross.

catsongs's avatar

It runs in the oligarchical family, dontcha know? See: The Guy Who Cheats At Golf on the subject of his favorite child. And also beside the point but true: I have now reached the same point of revulsion when seeing EM's face as when I see TGWCAG's. Instant reflux. And I have the same response to that odious, barely functional "truck" of his. The design is so aggressively and purposefully repellent that I can't help but have unkind thoughts towards anyone driving one.

Alice's avatar

Let's take a moment to throw low-key hate at whatever disclose.tv is. She is Elon's daughter and she is not a child, she is 22 years old.

Brucker's avatar

I tend to give a pass to such things because "child" is also a description of a familial relationship (my twin daughters are 22, and they're still my children), although in Musk's case the relationship *barely* counts as he was an absent father and no longer accepts his daughter.

Jane Valerie's avatar

Right? Like she is an adult, that shitty headline was so weird.

Karen Gold's avatar

Yes! I hated that description of her.

Devin's avatar
Jun 2Edited

The only mind virus is whatever is causing millions of people to get such a thrill out of following a few evil individuals into viciously hating and oppressing people who’ve done nothing to deserve it.

Also so cruel and inaccurate to blame Vivian for the behavior of her white-trash-with-money father and the millions of rats who followed him.

monica ostby's avatar

Again find myself incredibly resentful of the deciders that worked to force the damn sale to this monster as he threatened to back away.

Josey's avatar

The world’s greatest crashout.

Jayna Sheats's avatar

On the plus side, it allowed many sensible people to desert Twitter and forget it ever existed...

This column is sobering for many reasons. I don't think Musk's transmisia swung the election. Erin has reported extensively and cogently here about the total absence of evidence that trans issues had a significant effect. And as for Musk's money: Paul Krugman has argued persuasively that it was simply "low-information voters" - people who literally do not know which party controls Congress. They were going for the cheapest promises (lowering the price of eggs); nothing more. They heard that on Fox and Newsmax, no special money needed.

But the idea that pundits with platforms *think* trans people's rights are swinging elections is truly scary. I did a very precise analysis last week of the "Counterterrorism Policy" document. It is no longer simple transphobia. The word is genocide.

https://jaynasheats.substack.com/p/canaries-in-the-city

Terra M.'s avatar

To paraphrase Doc Holliday from the 1993 movie Tombstone:

"A man like [Elon Musk] has got a great big hole, right in the middle of him. He can never kill enough, or steal enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it."

Talia Perkins's avatar

Talk about some deep pockets to be targets of 42 U.S.C. § 1983, 18 U.S.C. § 241, & 18 U.S.C. § 242 prosecution for their part in engineering, funding, and carrying out the propaganda campaign and enacting the laws and policies against transgender people. Could be $100k per transgender American even after the lawyers had their cut.

Does anyone really believe he didn't understand what he was signing when he agreed to Vivian's transition? Anyone?

Thank you Erin.

flapjacks's avatar

Confirmation that all the money in the world can't buy you a personality. Or friends. Or the love of your family. Or looks. Or happiness. Or fulfillment. Or...

Celeste's avatar

Honestly I thought this was well known.

Erin Reed's avatar

Yes but not directly from Musk and confirmed.

Celeste's avatar

Either way I’m glad this was posted because more people need to understand this.

DJC's avatar

Is it fair to say that Elon Musk was the start of the recent mass anti-Trans MAGA movement or was MAGA already targeting Trans people before Musk started his expensive hissy fit?

Joan the Dork's avatar

The culture war shifted focus from same-sex marriage to trans people almost the moment the Obergefell ruling landed, as if they had the talking points all lined up and waiting (which they probably did). It took a while longer for the hate campaign to start gaining traction, and Musk Re-Nazifying Xitter certainly exacerbated things, but the wheels were in motion well before he threw his hair plugs in the ring.

eg492's avatar

I would say no — the right was already working to get the ball rolling on anti-trans hate around 2016-2018, and Vivian didn't come out until 2020. He certainly helped amplify their efforts, but they had already landed on transgender people as their next scapegoat before that.

Sarah F's avatar

Vivian was born in 2004 and transitioned at age 16, which would have been 2020 or 2021. The GOP and religious right were screwing with us years before that. So, Elmo and Vivian weren't the start, no.