Names and faces
■ A California judge has approved a request by Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk’s adult daughter to change her name and gender on her birth certificate. Vivian Jenna Wilson filed the petition in Los Angeles County Superior Court the day after turning 18 in April. She cited gender identity and an apparent dislike of her father. “I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form,” she said in the petition. Judge Rafael Ongkeko approved the petition Wednesday in the Santa Monica courthouse after no one objected to the change. A hearing that had been scheduled for Friday was canceled. The court order said a new birth certificate would be issued reflecting the change. Vivian will now legally use the last name of her mother, Canadian author Justine Wilson, who was married to Musk from 2000 to 2008. The couple had five children, the oldest of whom died as an infant. Vivian has a twin brother. Musk has been married three times, including twice to “Westworld” actress Talulah Riley. He has two young children with the singer Grimes. On Father’s Day, Musk tweeted: “I love all my kids so much.” Musk, 50, who is currently trying to buy Twitter for $44 billion, has previously said he supports transgender people, though he was criticized for dismissing the use of different pronouns. “I absolutely support trans, but all these pronouns are an [aesthetic] nightmare,” he tweeted in December 2020. In July 2020, he tweeted “Pronouns suck.”
■ A memoir by Chelsea Manning will come out this fall. Titled “README.txt,” the book is scheduled for release in October. The former intelligence analyst served seven years in a military prison for leaking a trove of documents to WikiLeaks before President Barack Obama commuted the remainder of her 35-year sentence in 2017. The day after her conviction, Manning declared her gender identity was a woman and began to transition. “In README.txt, Manning recounts how her pleas for increased institutional transparency and government accountability took place alongside a fight to defend her rights as a trans woman,” said publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux. “Manning details the challenges of her childhood and adolescence as a naive, computer-savvy kid, what drew her to the military, and the fierce pride she has about the work she does.” The book’s title refers to a file she used for sending a message about the documents.