--- title: "Elon Musk’s Daughter Just Torched Walter Isaacson, His (and Steve Jobs’s) Biographer" description: "Vivian Jenna Wilson took to social media to accuse Walter Isaacson of portraying her in a \"defamatory\" light in his biography of Elon Musk." date: "2024-08-12" modified: "2024-08-12" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/elon-musk-daughter-torched-walter-isaacson" categories: - "Elon Musk" - "Future Society" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "billionaires" - "elon musk" - "vivian jenna wilson" --- # Elon Musk’s Daughter Just Torched Walter Isaacson, His (and Steve Jobs’s) Biographer ![]() *\Image: Beata Zawrzel / NurPhoto via Getty / Futurism\* Vivian Jenna Wilson, the estranged daughter of Elon Musk, took to social media yesterday, and publicly accused author Walter Isaacson of drawing a "defamatory" portrait of her in his 2023 biography of her rocket-launching billionaire father. The action took place on Meta's Threads — notably, a competitor launched after Musk's takeover of X-formerly-Twitter. In [a fiery string of posts,]() Wilson called Isaacson out directly, writing that his (number one *New York Times* bestseller) biography of her father, titled *Elon Musk*, "threw \[her\] to the wolves" in what was "one of the most humiliating experiences" of her life. "Elon was your darling Tony Stark apartheid-American hero with a semi-tragic backstory who was saving the world and you were too fucking cowardly to write anything other than a sad excuse for a puff piece," Wilson lamented. "To further this goal, you portrayed me in a light that is genuinely defamatory and I’m not going to mince my words." Wilson, who is transgender, is famously [estranged from her father](). In *Elon Musk*, Wilson's gender transition and later denouncement of her billionaire dad is raised as a driving force behind Musk's well-documented shift to the fringes of the political far-right. Musk himself re-upped this narrative in a recent interview with right-wing persona and [suit-wearer]() Jordan Peterson, claiming during a [transphobic tirade]() that Wilson's transition led him to vow to "destroy the woke mind virus" he believes is responsible for his daughter's gender identity. Wilson is also described in the biography as a "radical Marxist" by Musk's sister, Christiana Musk. But [in a recent interview with *NBC News*]() — her first in the public eye — Wilson deflated this characterization, calling it inaccurate and explaining that she simply opposes wealth inequality. And now, per the 20-year-old's Threads posts, Wilson is digging even deeper into her portrayal in *Elon Musk*. According to her, Isaacson's book diminished her experience to only a "villain backstory-origin" story for her father; what's more, she alleges that Isaacson — who claimed to *NBC* that he attempted to contact Wilson through family members — had "the information necessary to contact \[her\] directly" for her side of the story, and didn't. "I was treated as a VILLAIN BACKSTORY-ORIGIN to excuse or explain away his behavior. As if my whole existence was nothing but an inconvenience to him." wrote Wilson. "My identity was trivialized, my reasons for separation were misconstrued, and I was treated as naïve; stupid, unfairly unforgiving and unreasonably moralistic." "I was never asked, interviewed, or contacted to say anything for this poor excuse of pages you call a book," she continued. "I know that you claim that you 'reached out to me through family members' but I found out about this thing’s existence literally a MONTH before it was released. So either you are completely fucking incompetent at the most basic aspects of your 'job,' or you are weaponizing your own lack of effort to try to lift the blame off of yourself because you knew damn well what you were doing." Wilson went as far as to assert that Isaacson "deliberately failed" to get in touch with her because he "knew the angle \[he\] was going for," and that her "testimony would've fucked up \[his\] pretty little portrayal of an irredeemable human being." She then noted that while she was repeatedly referred to as "Jenna" in the book, that isn't actually her first name. "I go by Vivian by the way, not Jenna as the book implies," she wrote. "Jenna is what my friends from high school and my mom calls me. If you genuinely knew what you were talking about that's how you would've referred to me. It is genuinely impressive that you somehow managed to find a way to even fuck up my NAME." We reached out to Isaacson, who's also written biographies about Steve Jobs and Henry Kissinger (among others), to ask about Wilson's allegations, but have yet to hear back. But Wilson certainly isn't the first person to critique *Elon Musk*, which drew scrutiny for its general lack of fact-checking and what some viewed as an [air of access journalism](). "One way to keep Musk's myth intact," [wrote *The Verge'*s Elizabeth Lopatto]() at the time of the book's release, "is simply not to check things out." **More on Vivian Jenna Musk:** [*Elon Musk's Transgender Daughter Says He's Treated Her With Unbelievable Cruelty*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()