Elon Musk Wants You To Have More Children, But There's a Problem
How the Republican Party of family values fails from the top
Elon Musk spent this past Thanksgiving with Donald Trump. None of his 12 children appeared to be in attendance, and none of the three women who gave birth to those children appeared to be there either.
And it wasn’t just Thanksgiving that Musk spent with Trump. He’s practically been living with Trump at Mar-a-Lago since the election (without any of his kids), as illustrated in the featured image of this essay.
Despite Musk’s example of neglecting his children on the most important day of thanks and gratitude for family, he insists that people must have more children.
It’s one thing to advocate for more children, but quite another to do so while completely ignoring them. Anyone fortunate enough to be a parent can probably tell you — kids require attention. If I ignored my son for days on end and was a no-show on important holidays, at best he would forget me. At worst, he would despise me and it could negatively impact him forever.
“He doesn’t know what I was like as a child because he quite simply wasn’t there.” - Vivian Wilson, one of Elon Musk’s daughters
Musk is not alone with his questionable family values in a political party that claims to champion them. Here’s a rundown of three of the Republican Party leaders:
Donald Trump (President) - 5 kids from 3 women (cheated on most if not all of the women)
Pete Hegseth (Defense Secretary appointee) - 7 kids from 3 women (cheated on them all)
Elon Musk (DOGE co-head) - 12 kids from 3 women (allegedly cheated on them all)
In addition to these family value records, all three men have had credible claims of sexual assault, rape, and/or abuse levied against them. Trump was even adjudicated as a sexual abuser in civil court (by an independent jury that unanimously agreed).
If America voted to be led by these types of men, it begs the question—what type of society do we want? How do we want our young men to grow up and treat their spouses and children?
The JD Vance vision of the American family
Contrary to the examples set by Trump, Hegseth, and Musk, there are younger conservative men who have decent ideas about the American family. They also appear to walk the talk. The most prominent of those men is JD Vance, the incoming Vice President.
Vance has 3 kids from 1 woman (his current wife). He supports his wife in her career as a corporate litigator. And he has articulated pro-family policies, particularly in the Vice Presidential debate against Tim Walz:
“I want us, as a Republican Party, to be pro-family in the fullest sense of the word. I want us to support fertility treatments. I want us to make it easier for moms to afford to have babies. I want it to make it easier for young families to afford a home so they can afford a place to raise that family. And I think there's so much that we can do on the public policy front just to give women more options.”
I think it would be difficult for anyone — regardless of their political ideology — to disagree with any of what Vance said here. Vance is even open to having the government play a role in helping make this vision of the American family a reality.
What political party does he represent again?
Vance has many problems when it comes to social policy, but on his pro-family advocacy, even Tim Walz couldn’t disagree with him at the debate. They shared multiple moments of unity on this topic. It was refreshing.
But Vance is hardly the leader of the Republican Party in Trump's world. Trump has chosen to surround himself not with men who all display a model family life, but with deadbeat dads and serial cheaters like Hegseth and Musk.
Have kids, but don’t neglect them unless you want a dysfunctional family and society
If you want an illustrative example of how neglecting or poorly treating your children can backfire, simply look at Elon Musk. Instead of embracing and loving his transgender daughter, Vivian, Musk berated her, according to Vivian herself.
In addition, Vivian said in an interview that Musk had never been a supportive father. That he was rarely present in her life. How her mother and nannies were left to take care of Vivian and her siblings.
She also said the following about Musk on Threads: “He doesn’t know what I was like as a child because he quite simply wasn’t there. And in the little time that he was I was relentlessly harassed for my femininity and queerness.”
While Vivian’s problems with her father may be unique, no child wants to be neglected by a parent. Children are often smarter than we think. They can sense when we aren’t paying attention to them, if we don’t care, or if our mind is elsewhere.
It should be no surprise then why many neglected children want nothing to do with fathers who abandoned or ignored them for large portions of their childhood. Apart from creating a dysfunctional family, parents who neglect their children create a dysfunctional society.
If everyone parented like Elon Musk, scores of mentally injured young people would be wandering around searching for direction, meaning, and most importantly, love from an indifferent world when a primary source failed to provide it at home.
Instead of advocating for more children at all costs, perhaps we should be promoting more children, but only for parents who genuinely want them. We should be pro-family, but only if parents are willing to make sacrifices and provide the love that all children deserve and need.
What vision of family will win in Trump’s America?
Will the Elon Musk vision of “more kids at all costs” prevail? Or will JD Vance lead by example and influence positive policies that support families, childcare, and procedures like IVF?
I’m hopeful it’s more of the latter, but fearful it’s likely the former. Few Republican administrations have shown much interest in protecting human life once that life leaves a woman’s womb. In recent history, they have cut social spending, and now with Elon Musk running DOGE, there will likely be additional cuts. Musk has even said himself that people should plan to suffer “hardship” initially.
The JD Vance pro-family vision where government plays a role in supporting parents and kids is anathema to Republican individualism. A historic vision that people (including parents) must pull themselves up by their bootstraps even if they were born without bootstraps.
We should want a society that promotes childbirth, but we should equally desire a society that promotes loving and attentive parents. The government should play a role, whether that’s by incentivizing employers to help subsidize childcare and offer extended parental leave (like they have in Europe). Or better yet, the government should provide better healthcare options (having babies is expensive!) that are not dependent on employment.
Unfortunately on the healthcare front, Trump only has “concepts of a plan.”
We must recognize that children are more than just property, trophies, or numbers on the population growth chart. They are the future. And if we want a society that thrives in the future, we must do more to love and support children and their parents in the present.
The Elon Musk example of parenting cannot be the model to follow.
Read more great essays and articles at The Political Prism, including these from this past week:
Shifting Tides: The Impact of U.S. Politics on the War In Ukraine by Oliver Caute
Unpacking California’s 2024 Election U-Turn on Criminal Justice by Nick Hart
Once Again, the “Experts” Can’t Always Be Trusted by Frances Chiu
Is Mainstream Media Dead? The Rise of Independent Voices by George Ziogas
How To Suppress Women’s Rights 101 by Old Patriot