Jennifer Justine Musk ( Wilson; born September 2, 1972) is a Canadian author. She is the first ex-wife of businessman

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman. He is known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk has been considered the wealthiest person in th ...

Early life and education

Jennifer "Justine" Wilson was born on September 2, 1972, in

Peterborough, Ontario Peterborough ( ) is a city on the Otonabee River in Ontario, Canada, about 125 kilometres (78 miles) northeast of Toronto. According to the 2021 Census, the population of the City of Peterborough was 83,651. The population of the Peterborough ...

, to parents Terry and Shirley Wilson. Justine was the oldest of two children, her younger sister, Erin, eventually left Peterborough to live in LA with Justine. Justine always had a keen interest in literature and a passion for writing, she was interested in becoming a writer from a very early age and would never be far from a book. Justine was able to spend her senior high school year in Wagga Wagga, Australia, as an exchange student. She returned to Peterborough in 1990 and joined the Peterborough Taekwondo School, eventually attaining a first degree black belt. She went on to attend Queen's University in

Kingston, Ontario Kingston is a city in Ontario, Canada, on the northeastern end of Lake Ontario. It is at the beginning of the St. Lawrence River and at the mouth of the Cataraqui River, the south end of the Rideau Canal. Kingston is near the Thousand Islands, ...

, and obtained a degree in English literature, it was there she met Elon Musk.

Career

After university, Wilson moved to Japan, teaching

English as a second language English as a second or foreign language refers to the use of English by individuals whose native language is different, commonly among students learning to speak and write English. Variably known as English as a foreign language (EFL), Engli ...

(ESL). She subsequently settled in California. Wilson is the author of the

contemporary fantasy Contemporary fantasy is a genre, subgenre of fantasy set in the present day. It is perhaps most popular for its subgenres, occult detective fiction, urban fantasy, low fantasy, supernatural fiction and paranormal fiction. Several authors note that ...

novel ''BloodAngel'', published in 2005 by the

Roc Books Roc Books is a fantasy imprint of Penguin Group, as part of its New American Library. It was launched in April 1990 after Penguin Chairman Peter Mayer asked John Silbersack, the editor in chief of New American Library's science fiction (SF) pro ...

imprint of

Penguin Books Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...

. Her second book, ''Uninvited'', was released in 2007 and is an unrelated work intended for young-adult readers. A sequel to ''BloodAngel'', ''Lord of Bones'', was released in 2008. Wilson was one of the first people to use a site like

Pinterest Pinterest is an American social media service for publishing and discovery of information in the form of digital Bulletin board, pinboards. This includes recipes, home, style, motivation, and inspiration on the Internet using image sharing. Pint ...

to plan out a novel. In a 2007 interview, she identified

Margaret Atwood Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian novelist, poet, literary critic, and an inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of nonfiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight chi ...

Joyce Carol Oates Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. Her novels ''Black ...

Paul Theroux Paul Edward Theroux ( ; born April 10, 1941) is an American novelist and travel writer who has written numerous books, including the travelogue '' The Great Railway Bazaar'' (1975). Some of his works of fiction have been adapted as feature films ...

, George R.R. Martin,

Guy Gavriel Kay Guy Gavriel Kay (born November 7, 1954) is a Canadian writer of fantasy fiction. The majority of his novels take place in fictional settings that resemble real places during real historical periods, such as Constantinople during the reign of Ju ...

, and

Neil Gaiman Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman (; born Neil Richard Gaiman; 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, audio theatre, and screenplays. His works include the comic series ''The Sandman (comic book), The Sandma ...

as authors to whom she could relate her writings. She also described her books as cross-genre fiction.

Personal life

Following a protracted courtship starting in or about 1992, in January 2000, Wilson married

. Their first child was born in 2002 and died of

sudden infant death syndrome Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), sometimes known as cot death or crib death, is the sudden unexplained death of a child of less than one year of age. Diagnosis requires that the death remain unexplained even after a thorough autopsy and ...

(SIDS) at the age of 10 weeks. Through

in vitro fertilization In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is a process of fertilisation in which an egg is combined with sperm in vitro ("in glass"). The process involves monitoring and stimulating the ovulatory process, then removing an ovum or ova (egg or eggs) from ...

, she gave birth to twins in 2004 and triplet boys in 2006. On September 13, 2008, she announced that she and Musk were getting a divorce. She and Musk shared custody of their children. Wilson later wrote an article for ''

Marie Claire ''Marie Claire'' (stylized in all lowercase; ) is a French international monthly magazine first published in France in 1937. Since then various editions are published in many countries and languages. The feature editions focus on women aro ...

'' detailing ways she thought the marriage was unhealthy, such as Musk's dismissal of her career ambitions, his description of himself as the "

alpha Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter ''aleph'' , whose name comes from the West Semitic word for ' ...

" in the relationship, and his pressure for her to become a

trophy wife A trophy wife is a wife who is regarded as a status symbol for the husband. The term is often used in a derogatory or disparaging way, implying that the wife in question has little personal merit besides her physical attractiveness, requires subs ...

. In 2010, she described herself as a "model former wife", and said she was on good terms with Musk's then-wife,

Talulah Riley Talulah Jane Riley-Milburn''Births, Marriages & Deaths Index of England & Wales, 1916-2005''; Ancestry.com. Retrieved 3 November 2015. (born 26 September 1985) is an English actress. She has appeared in films, including '' Pride & Prejudice'' ( ...

. She has said that she kept the last name Musk for their children's sake. In 2022, one of their twins officially changed her name to Vivian to reflect her

gender identity Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent and consistent with the in ...

and took Wilson as her surname because she no longer wished to be associated with her father.

Bibliography

Notes

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Musk, Justine 1972 births Living people 21st-century Canadian women writers Canadian expatriate writers in the United States Canadian fantasy writers Canadian women novelists Chick lit writers People from Peterborough, Ontario People from Bel Air, Los Angeles Canadian women science fiction and fantasy writers Musk family Queen's University at Kingston alumni Novelists from Ontario