Elon Musk’s estranged daughter has responded to accusations that her father made a Nazi-like gesture at Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The incident took place on Monday (January 20), when the President-elect Donald Trump was sworn into the White House for the second time. During the inauguration ceremonies, the tech billionaire and SpaceX and Tesla CEO addressed the crowd.
“I just want to say thank you for making it happen,” he said, before slapping his chest with his right hand and extending his arm upwards with the palm facing down. He then turned around to crowd members behind the podium and repeated the gesture.
Many have compared it to a Nazi salute signalling obedience to Adolf Hitler.
Now, amid extensive backlash online for the gesture, his estranged daughter, Vivian Wilson, has also weighed in, and taken to Instagram Threads to allude to the situation.
Wilson –who is one of six children the billionaire had with ex-wife and author Justine Musk – officially changed her name in 2022 to reflect her gender identity as a trans woman and take her mother’s maiden name. She has also hit back at her father numerous times for his anti-trans comments.
“I’m just gonna say let’s call a spade a fucking spade,” she wrote on Instagram’s Threads platform on Tuesday (21). “Especially if there were two spades done in succession based on the reaction of the first spade.”
She did not name Musk in any of the updates but heavily hinted that she was alluding to the incident at the Capitol One Arena. Wilson then shared a second update, seemingly hitting back at claims that the gesture could be explained because of his “autism”.
“I don’t know why ya’ll are reacting with such vigour, I’m clearly only talking about card suits,” she quipped. “I mean I have ADHD and this was CLEARLY just an accident that people happened to interpret to mean something other than just card suits.
“After all, there’s no proof I’m not just talking about card suits,” she joked. “People assuming that I’m not just talking about card suits just goes to show how dishonest people/the media can be.”
Her final update read: “For those who can read between the lines, do y’all understand how fucking easy this is to do? Plausible deniability honey. Just saying.”
Wilson isn’t the only one to speak out against Musk following the gesture, since Monday, Grimes – the musician who was previously in a relationship with Musk and shares multiple children with him – distanced herself from him online, My Chemical Romance’s Frank Iero called him out online, and Green Day also took aim at the billionaire while on stage in South Africa, changing the lyrics to ‘American Idiot’ to take a jab at him.
Since the inauguration, Musk – who has been an integral part of Trump’s election victory and was later appointed by the new POTUS to lead his new Department Of Government Efficiency – has spoken out against the backlash.
Although he has yet to formally denounce Nazism, he did take to X to agree with a tweet that read: “Can we please retire the calling people a Nazi thing? It didn’t work during the election, it’s not working now, it’s tired, boring, and old material, you’ve burned out its effect, people don’t feel shocked by it anymore, the wolf has been cried too many times.”
He responded: “Yeah exactly 🥱.”
In a separate post on X, he wrote: “Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired”.
Frankly, they need better dirty tricks.
The “everyone is Hitler” attack is sooo tired 😴 https://t.co/9fIqS5mWA0
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 21, 2025
As well as calling out her father for the gesture, Vivian Wilson has also taken to Threads to respond to President Donald Trump’s recent ruling that the United States of America will only recognise two sexes, male and female.
“I want every single trans person to read this document,” Wilson wrote, sharing a link to the order. “It is important to understand what we are fighting against and the shamelessness of their hatred.”
She also hinted that she may leave the country following Trump’s victory. “I’ve thought this for a while, but yesterday confirmed it for me. I don’t see my future being in the United States,” she wrote as the election results were announced (via Independent).
“Even if he’s only in office for four years, even if the anti-trans regulations magically don’t happen, the people who willingly voted this in are not going anywhere anytime soon.”
Before then, last summer saw Vivian hit back at her father’s comments that she was “killed by the woke mind virus”.
During an interview at the time with conservative commentator and psychologist Jordan Peterson, the Tesla and X CEO repeatedly deadnamed and misgendered his daughter. He also claimed that he had been “tricked” into signing the paperwork to allow Vivian to use puberty blockers, which he described as “actually just sterilisation drugs”.
He added that his “son” had been “killed” by the “woke mind virus” and that he had “lost his son”.
I love and am forever endlessly proud of Vivian.
— 𝖦𝗋𝗂𝗆𝖾𝗌 ⏳ (@Grimezsz) July 26, 2024
Responding on Threads, Wilson said: “I disowned him, not the other way around,” referring to her legally changing her name to have ‘Musk’ replaced.
She also replied to Musk’s claim that she had been “killed” by saying, “I look pretty good for a dead bitch”.
Musk’s former partner Grimes has also appeared to add her support, writing on X: “I love and am forever endlessly proud of Vivian.”
The backlash against his gesture at the inauguration isn’t the first time that the tech mogul has been on the receiving end of something like this. Since his takeover of Twitter, which he soon rebranded as X, Musk has been criticised for letting pro-Nazi profiles thrive on the platform.
He has also seen backlash for sharing right-wing memes and seemingly supporting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Outlets including AP News report that this led to an exodus of advertisers from the platform in 2023.
More recently, Musk endorsed Germany’s far-right populist AfD party. “Only the AfD can save Germany,” he wrote last month. The party has denied associations with Hitler, and Musk has urged people not to compare the AfD’s leader to the dictator.