Inside Elon Musk and first wife Justine Wilson’s murky marriage: their trans daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson just ditched his name for her mum’s, but what was their pre-fame relationship really like?
Two years after their bitter split, with a financial battle looming, Wilson gave the whole world a look into her marriage to Musk. Here are just some of the revelations she discussed in an essay she wrote for Marie Claire in 2010, as well as other surprises from Musk’s first marriage.
The obsession with blonde hair
Wilson said that, during their relationship, Musk pressured her to change her hair colour to blonde. She said when she first met him while they were studying in Canada, she was not blonde. During the course of their marriage, he pushed her to get highlights and even to “go platinum”.
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By the end of their marriage, Wilson said she barely recognised herself. In the Marie Claire piece, Wilson said she had become “very thin” and “very blonde” during her marriage. She admitted she had turned into a trophy wife and it was never a role she fitted into.
The scary wedding dance
Raging arguments
As their marriage hit the rocks, Wilson said she realised she was “the starter wife”. She said Musk was obsessed with work and while she couldn’t criticise his brilliance, she longed for intimacy. When she raised these issues with him, she said he would say “she read too much”, insinuating that books were feeding her thoughts.
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Musk moved on quickly
In a 2017 interview with Rolling Stone, Musk said that if he is not with a long-term companion, he is not happy. He told the interviewer that sleeping alone “kills me”.
Nightmare year
Despite moving on quickly, in a recent conversation with the Tesla Owners of Silicon Valley Club, Musk described 2008 as a “nightmare year”. Fox Business reported that he was speaking about the early days of Tesla, with problems with financing and with his marriage falling apart. “Good times,” he joked. “Extremely brutal to say the least – the lowest of lows,” he told the owners. It was one of the few times he has spoken about his personal life.
- Wilson spoke about being the Tesla CEO’s ‘starter wife’ in a 2010 essay for Marie Claire; Musk got engaged to British actress Talulah Riley right after the divorce
- The pair share five children together – Griffin, Vivian, Kai, Saxon and Damian – but Wilson said Musk treated her like a staff member and called himself the ‘alpha’ in the relationship