[Bostonian]

I agree with Musk about the California law, but a CEO is supposed to make decisions for a company to increase shareholder value (and arguably benefit other stakeholders), not to make political points.

'His disclosures followed the move by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, to sign a new law Monday that aims to prevent schools from informing families if their children identify as gay or transgender.

“This is the final straw,” Musk wrote on X, the social-media platform he owns. He cited the law as well as “many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies.”'

[rjbwork]

>“This is the final straw,” Musk wrote on X, the social-media platform he owns. He cited the law as well as “many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies.”'

Man who hates that his trans child hates him angry that the government isn't forcing trans children to tell their hateful parents they're trans.

If your children aren't comfortable telling you things like this, that's a failure of you as a parent. I'm not going to pretend there isn't social contagion or a bunch of teenagers questioning things out of peer pressure or that actual rates of transness are much lower than their visibility or a million other things. What I am saying is that if your kids are not comfortable talking to you about serious topics like this, you've failed as a parent. Your kids should know you'll love them no matter what and will support them in trying to build a happy life for themselves.

My friend's child believes they are trans, and while the parents are skeptical, there was never any doubt in that kids mind that their parents should know what they are going through and feeling or that they would love them no matter what.

[collingreen]

I think this is a very important post; thank you for writing it. In general, if your kids don't trust you then fixing that should be your first priority before you start pointing fingers everywhere but inward.

Parenting looks very very hard and I'm not implying this is easy - being worthy of trust is one of the hardest things in all our relationships. I do, however, think people need to reckon with the fact that a lot of the time the bad thing teachers are protecting kids from (or at least trying to) is their home life.

This is a bad solution to a bad problem. I dont think teachers are qualified to do this nor do I think they are in a position to do it safely but I do think it is important to help kids get out from under abuse.

I think more community would be a better general solution so it isn't just an underpaid, overworked, and opinionated government employee vs an underpaid, overworked, and opinionated parent with the kid crushed in the middle with no outside help they can turn to.

[JumpCrisscross]

> if your kids don't trust you then fixing that should be your first priority before you start pointing fingers everywhere but inward

While the present state of Musk and his daughter's relationship is detestable, I don't think we can conclude they didn't try--in private--to mend the relationship before she concluded it was a lost cause.

[beaglesss]

There's some interesting behavioral evolutionary calculus that might be interesting here though. If you find out your kid is trans there is a much lower chance they pass on your genes, could it be natural for the relationship to be more likely to break down after that?

I would think evolution would tend to more or less force the most parental resources to go to the most likely propagation of those genes. Especially if there are lots of other children to vie for attention and resources.

[JumpCrisscross]

> If you find out your kid is trans there is a much lower chance they pass on your genes, could it be natural for the relationship to be more likely to break down after that?

While we know transexuality—people having gender identities or conforming to gender norms other than those corresponding to their assigned sex—is preserved across millennia and disparate cultures [1], it’s unclear if it generalises beyond humans [2].

We do, however, see homosexuality across both time and cultures in humans and in animals [3]. That preservation strongly implies evolutionary benefits, whether as a side effect or—more likely, given its strong presentation in social animals—group selection.

So no, I don’t think there is evolutionary pressure for parents to reject trans (or gay) kids. Especially when they’re in a resource rich state.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsexual#Historical_under...

[2] https://daily.jstor.org/transgender-proclivities-in-animals/

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_anima...

[beaglesss]

I'm not sure history shows parents have on average been comparatively kind to gay children either.

Instinct is definitely one possible explanation for a behavior spanning so much geography and cultures.

[etblg]

The motherfucker has 11 kids _that we know about_, maybe he should stop being so worried about passing on his genes Nick Cannon-style, and more worried about being a father to the ones he has.

[kylehotchkiss]

> What I am saying is that if your kids are not comfortable talking to you about serious topics like this, you've failed as a parent. Your kids should know you'll love them no matter what and will support them in trying to build a happy life for themselves.

When Hacker News hits the heartstrings. Great life principle, rjbwork.

[falleng0d]

> Man who hates that his trans child hates him angry

These are very strong accusations. Do you have a reference or is this just an emotional response?

[rjbwork]

I know that his trans child won't speak to him - I surmise it indicates hate, but perhaps not.

Usually when people say things like "this is the final straw" it indicates anger.

You can read more on the former by searching "Xavier Musk" and/or "Vivian Musk".

[s1artibartfast]

Isn't there an inversion taking place in that logic. It stands that she might hate him, but not that he hates her.

[rsynnott]

Well, he seems to have had a complete and very public nervous breakdown about trans people in the last few years, so, well, you do the maths.

[s1artibartfast]

Did he? What did he do?

[defrost]

The statement was not that

"he hates her" but that

"he hates that she hates him".

[s1artibartfast]

I did misread that. Several times in fact.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Do you have a reference

She is quoted saying she no longer wishes "to be related to [her] biological father in any way, shape or form" [1]. Musk has publicly ranted about the estrangement, which isn't usually how one mends ties with family [2]. While I have no personal insight into the situation, it's fair to say Musk hates the estrangement and that his child, at the very least, wants nothing to do with him.

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/elon-musks-child-seeks-...

[2] https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/10/10/elon-musk-says-he-los...

[Dig1t]

This is discussed in the Walter Isaacson biography that came out last year. Saying he “hates” his daughter is completely wrong and ignores first hand claims from both Musk and his biographer.

>Musk only learned she had transitioned through a secondhand source

>The wife of Elon's brother got a text, Isaacson wrote, which said: "Hey, I'm transgender, and my name is now Jenna". The text from the child, as in the biography, added: "Don't tell my dad."

>The biographer said that Musk was "generally sanguine" when he found out she had transitioned but was hurt when she cut off communication with him.

>The rift pained him more than anything in his life since the infant death of his firstborn child Nevada," Isaacson wrote of Musk's feelings about his relationship with his 19-year-old daughter.

>Isaacson said that Musk blamed the disconnect between him and his daughter on her schooling at Crossroads, a private school she attended in Los Angeles. Musk has made similar comments publicly.

>Last year, he told the Financial Times his daughter didn't want to be associated with him because of what he called the "full-on communism" taught in schools.

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-comments-relations...

This all explains why he has had such an anti-woke streak, he blames the ideology for poisoning one of his kids against him.

Definitely recommend reading the biography, it’s very interesting.

[rjbwork]

I didn't say he hates his daughter. I'd suggest you reread.

[Dig1t]

Ah my bad, I read it on my phone and read it as "he hates his daughter". Sorry.

Well the rest of my comment is still relevant anyway I guess.

[LightBug1]

Christ ... that's a lot of quoting and referencing. The guy is a douche. It's as simple as that.

[yongjik]

Yeah it's pretty crazy considering Musk's own family backstory. Is he butthurt that his transgender child went no-contact on him before he could kick them out of the family himself?

[strangattractor]

Elon doesn't live with most of his kids - why would he even care? His reason for moving is the taxes are less in Texas for now and the laws will turn a blind eye to environmental damage his companies do. As the population continues to grow in Tx that will change. Elon should be required to get a trolling license.

Yes - I agree (I am a parent) that the law is stupid. If a kid doesn't want their parents to know something they should do it the old fashion way and lie as I did and my parents did before me etc:)

My favorite thing lately is that NYT dedicated and entire article [1] to Elon goal 1 million people on Mars in the next twenty years. Tesla has been working almost that long not getting self driving cars to work. Why on Earth would anyone bother to take seriously putting 1 million people on Mars in 20 years - something several orders of magnitude more difficult.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/11/technology/elon-musk-spac....

[derdi]

> Yes - I agree (I am a parent) that the law is stupid. If a kid doesn't want their parents to know something they should do it the old fashion way and lie as I did and my parents did before me etc:)

The law seems to be about making it possible for kids to lie without the school snitching on them. You should be in favor of this law, no?

[sqeaky]

Exactly. The law is about preventing abuse from fundamentalists towards their children. If the school must snitch and the school must report then a person who believes their kid being gay will go to hell will abuse their child until they pretend to no be gay.

[strangattractor]

First the :) means I was somewhat joking. Second as much as I love CA the state has become increasingly interested in creating unenforcible and intrusive laws. Although I can see a case for protecting children from abusive parents (we have laws for that already) it seems to ignore other things. Like the following:

1. AFAIK - If a kid decides to change their pronoun around their friends the school is not required to report that now and would likely not even know or care. If they do no make an official request to Teachers or staff etc then who's to know. This reminds of when fundamentalist claimed prayer was banned in schools. That has never been the case. School lead or Staff lead prayer was banned. Any child that wished to pray before eating lunch was totally free to do so.

2. It assumes that knee jerk reaction on the part of all fundamentalist parents. (feels weird for an atheist to defend fundamentalist but here we are)

3. Where's the data to back this decision up?

4. There are likely situations where it might be important for the parent to know what their child is doing. What if they are in a cult and want to change their name to unintelligible gibberish - wait Musk is probably ok with that. What if someone is convincing them to get illegal surgery?

[enragedcacti]

> 3. Where's the data to back this decision up?

LGBTQ kids report homelessness at much higher rates than their peers[1], are heavily over-represented in foster care[2], and report substantially higher rates of abuse[3].

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/gay-and-transgender...

https://youth.gov/youth-topics/lgbtq-youth/child-welfare

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8344346/

Side note but its kind of a funny question to ask when the literal text of the law includes citations to studies that back up the policy.

[strangattractor]

In what way will this law prevent or improve the situation?

This law seems to be in reaction to laws that were passed in other states requiring the reporting. We don't have that in CA. Having looked at your sources I would agree there are problems but pronoun protection seems to be the least useful solution and likely posturing by certain politicians with Presidential ambitions. IMHO

[enragedcacti]

Some school districts in California already tried to implement forced outing policies. The policies were tied up in California courts so they weren't in practice but this law cuts them off completely. It also lays the groundwork and starts the process of fending off legal challenges that will hopefully make laws like this easier to pass in other states. Agreed that there are many related issues that CA and elsewhere should be tackling. But we aren't talking about the law because its proponents think its a complete solution, were talking about it because Elon and many others are apoplectic about this simple common-sense policy.

[acdha]

> Although I can see a case for protecting children from abusive parents (we have laws for that already)

There are laws preventing gross abuse, yes, but there’s still a great deal of harm which won’t get action or won’t get it in time. If you beat your gay/trans child, yes, the cops are in your future but you can ground them forever, surround them with people who tell them they’re going to burn in hell for expressing their identity, or ship them off to some kind of unregulated Bible camp/school and likely see no consequences.

Not LGBT but if you haven’t read Jesus Land, it’s brutal and a good reminder of what happens at these private “reform” schools – and I note that the decades of abuse finally being disclosed meant that a different church bought it and hired many of the staff:

https://archive.org/details/jesuslandmemoir0000sche

That’s a common problem with laws like this: they sound over the top - and will be the target for lazy jokes – because they’re focused on stopping the edge cases which most people aren’t really aware of.

[derdi]

> First the :) means I was somewhat joking.

Sure, but about what? To me it came across as "I acknowledge my kids' right to privacy and chose to phrase this humorously". Now it sounds more like "I deny my kids' right to privacy and chose to phrase this humorously".

> 3. Where's the data to back this decision up?

As I understand it from other posters, individual schools had already ordered their teachers to snitch to parents. (How is that for government overreach?) The bill still allows teachers to snitch to parents, it just prevents the school from ordering them to snitch.

[strangattractor]

"The measure Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed on Monday, is the first to rebuke laws in a handful of other states that say educators must alert parents if a student requests to go by a different name or pronouns. At least 10 states say educators and classmates don’t have to use a student’s name or pronouns if it doesn’t align with a student’s sex assigned at birth." [1]

[1] https://www.edweek.org/leadership/should-schools-tell-parent....

So the law was passed to fix a problem that does not exist in CA.

[dragonwriter]

> So the law was passed to fix a problem that does not exist in CA.

No, it wasn't. The article is, at best, abusing "rebuke" to mean "buck the trend", but the law does not literally rebuke foreign state laws.

It addresses two related issues, both of which do, in fact, exist in California:

(1) It provides school-based support and resources for LGBTQ+ students and families thereof responsive to research on specific needs of that community, including the significant effect of family support on well-being,

(2) It prohibits local districts from forced-outing policies, which have been adopted by at least four districts (at least one of which has been forced to put enforcement on hold because of a temporary restraining order issued in a lawsuit brought against the policy), and are under discussion by more than a dozen more.

[sqeaky]

So let me see if this is a rephrasing of your point: I don't need this sort of protection so no kid should be protected because I think that protection hasn't been proven effective and the school shouldn't need to be a safe space for kids if the circumstances of their birth affect that.

[strangattractor]

Totally missed the point I'm afraid so I don't feel bad or inhuman like you intended. I asked multiple questions

1. What data backs up the law? Answer a bunch of studies primarily on foster kids in some unidentified State. This could be a state like Louisiana for example. So it did not answer the quest whether CA had this problem and had nothing to do with districts policy.

2. What does the law accomplish? If it is intended to help foster kids it may do so tangentially but given we don't see studies on CA foster kids I guess we still don't know.

3. Is this a problem in CA? It was commented by several people that districts in CA were trying to make reporting mandatory. No references or data were supplied. I finally found my own reference and supplied it to the thread.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/17/gavi...

There is actually a district, Chino, was trying to to make it a policy. My mind has now changed about the law.

To paraphrase you - "So let me see if this is a rephrasing of your point: I am not going to put forth the mental effort necessary to take you points seriously so I will make a snide comment instead."

[brodouevencode]

> increase shareholder value

Given the current CA tax situation and the fact that other companies have already led the way he's probably doing just that. Besides my understanding was that the bill was "the last straw" according to Musk.

[sunshowers]

To be clear, the main animating force in Elon's life over the last few years is his oldest coming out as trans. That's why he bought Twitter and turned it into a nonstop Klan rally, that's why he supports Trump, that's why he opposes this law. His first-born is trans.

[FireBeyond]

> His first-born is trans.

Apropos of the rest of your point, his first-born died of SIDS at 10 weeks.

[sunshowers]

Ah, I wasn't aware. Sorry to hear that.

[s1artibartfast]

My understanding is that it is less about them coming out as trans, but they fact that they are a socialist and hate his guts.

[sunshowers]

No, it was about her coming out as trans.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musk-transgender...

> Musk told Peterson that Wilson’s gender transition has been the motivation for his push into conservative politics.

[greentxt]

Isn't the legislative climate and the perceived wisdom of a state's political leadership something that might reasonably impact shareholder value? Can making political points ever increase shareholder value in and of itself? Isn't that sort of the premise of ESG?

[NotGMan]

>> but a CEO is supposed to make decisions for a company to increase shareholder value

If many tech workers will move out of crazy California then Musk will get them, increasing shareholder value.