In a 2017 email to employees which the company later released in response to one of the lawsuits, Elon warned against being a huge jerk to members of a historically less represented group. He also wrote, if someone is a jerk to you, but sincerely apologizes, it is important to be thick-skinned and accept that apology.. Errol Musk, the family's patriarch, is in the news after confirming he fathered a second secret love child with his stepdaughter, Jana Bezuidenhout, 35. In December 2019, Elon denied the emerald mine-and-lavish-lifestyle story on Twitter, saying it was a lie. But I've been in physical danger before. In an interview with Business Insider South Africa, Musk's father Errol Musk said he negotiated his way into having partial ownership of an Emerald mine in Zambia along with other assets. In an interview with Rolling Stone, during which he reportedly cried, Elon called his father "a terrible human being" and "evil. [11] The family lived in Pretoria,[10][12] where Maye worked as a dietician and a model. Errol named his price, and a deal was done. So we got one, thank God at a discount, and with that computer he taught himself, using Disk Operating System, which is DOS, to program, Errol said. After Maye and Errol divorced in 1980, Elon mostly lived with his father, who says he owned thoroughbred horses, a yacht, several houses and a Cessna. I couldnt even afford a 2nd PC at Zip2, so programmed at night & website only worked during day. By clicking Accept All Cookies, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts. "'His Family Stole an Emerald Mine.'" Elon Musk's Dad Tells BI About the Family's Casual Attitude to Wealth Elon Musk came from a family that owned an emerald mine in Apartheid South Africa. I said, Oh, all right. In the past, the Tesla CEO hasrespondedseveral times on Twitter about the emerald mine rumors. But I didnt really understand at the time what kind of person he was. Errol made money by consulting and developing properties, Forbes reported. [21] As of 2022, Musk and Jana Bezuidenhout were no longer living together. The Onion, 22 Mar. Standing with the cash in his hand, Errol was made another offer he couldn't refuse: Would he like to buy half an emerald mine for half of his new riches? Are broader financial markets in a massive speculative bubble? Theyre the same, except for the fact that he is a billionaire, started multiple successful companies and doesnt live in his mothers basement. We live in a world where facts and fiction get blurred. In 2019, Elon Musk confronted the Twitter talking point about his father's supposed emerald mine head on, writing, "He didn't own an emerald mine & I worked my way through college, ending. All About Errol Musk." Jana was 4 years old when Errol married her mother, Heide Bezuidenhout though he claims that he didn't consider Jana his stepdaughter, as she primarily grew up separate from the Musks. While the story did mention the family once lived in a popular suburb, the article said nothing of the emerald mine providing wealth to the son when he moved to Canada in 1988, or to the U.S. in 1992. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, grew up in South Africa and made his way via Canada to the U.S. as a transfer student before attending the Wharton School and becoming the billionaire tech founder he is today. Several respondents on social media disputed the emerald mine and privileged-lifestyle story, defending Musks intelligence and questioning the intelligence of the person who started the thread. Jack @lets_gobaby tweeted, Ok but how does inheriting money mean you arent smart?. The most direct address was a tweet that said his father "didn't own an emerald mind [and] I worked my way through college, ending up ~$100k in student debt.". [14], Musk was married to Heide Bezuidenhout for eighteen years and helped her raise her young daughter Jana Bezuidenhout, a child from a previous relationship. Elon Musk: The Truth About His Dad and Emerald Mines, Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes Should Remain On-Air Couple After ABC Exit, According to TV Host, King Charles' Reported Reason for Evicting Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Revealed, Hoda Kotb Makes Brief 'Today Show' Appearance Amid Family Health Matter, 'Creed III': Why Sylvester Stallone and Rocky Balboa Are Missing From Latest Film, Disney World Brings Back 'Beauty & the Beast' Experience for First Time Since COVID-19 Pandemic Began, QVC Hosts Call it Quits After Nearly 20 Years, Florida Residents Urged to Use Caution With Tap Water After Man Dies From Brain-Eating Amoeba. Click Here to Get Smart on Protecting Your Family and Loves Ones, No Matter What Happens. Smart Policies are as low as $30 a month, No Medical Exam Required The gist of the claim was that Elon's father, Errol Musk, who reports say has been estranged from his son for some time, owned an emerald mine during apartheid in South Africa, and that it was seed money from his father's wealth from the mine that made it possible for him to become the American billionaire he is today. Jain, Sanya. Errol admitted to having affairs, but his ex-wife, now a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model, said the problems in their marriage extended beyond infidelity, alleging that Errol was abusive. The Musk name might be one of the most recognizable on the planet, but little is known about its patriarch, Errol Musk. On Wednesday, Errol confirmed that he and Jana had welcomed a second child, a daughter who is now 3. He is the father of business magnate and billionaire Elon Musk, restaurateur Kimbal Musk, and filmmaker Tosca Musk. mark_able_jones_. So we decided to head back to Lake Tanganyika from where we were, I think we were in Djibouti., Errol Musk (father of one Elon Musk) on raising one of the world's most famous billionaires: http://t.co/Fg8xmqN1L0 pic.twitter.com/LVJyMdebZK. "He didn't own an emerald mine & I worked my way through college, ending up ~$100k in student debt," Elon tweeted in December 2019. In the biography Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, author Ashlee Vance wrote that Errol invested $28,000 in Elon and Kimbal's then-fledgling company, Zip2. Errol himself has an adventurous streak and is an avid sailor and pilot. "I paid my own way through collegethrough student loans, scholarships, working jobsand ended up with $100,000 of student debt," Musk says. Eligon, John, and Lynsey Chutel. Copyright 2023 PopCulture.com. "Exploring the Otherworldly Ambitions of Elon Musk." People.Com, 7 Nov. 2022, https://people.com/human-interest/who-is-errol-musk-elon-musk-father/. "The Richest Person In Every State And How They Made Their Money." ", Though he claimed Elon and Kimbal were upset with him for fathering a child with a woman they felt was "their sister," Errol told The Sun, "The only thing we are on Earth for is to reproduce. The claim attracted a response from the billionaire, who said that the claim isn't true. Errol was elected to the Pretoria City Council in 1972 and was an outspoken advocate for abolishing apartheid. We did not receive a response before this story was published. Elon Musk Emerald Mine (Blood Emeralds & Apartheid?) Worked on my Moms cousins farm in Saskatchewan & a lumber mill in Vancouver. Almost every crime you can possibly think of, he has done. SASSA: Here are your March 2023 grant payment dates. Related stories Making better AI is Elon Musk's new object of . The narrative of Elon Musks wealth coming from his familys apartheid gains is one that started a few years ago when Business Insider wrote an article highlighting the Musk familys involvement in mining during SAs apartheid years. He said that he sold and traded these emeralds himself and that at one point, Elon himself even went out to sell some of the stones. The New York Times, 5 May 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/05/world/africa/elon-musk-south-africa.html. Instead, we will concentrate on the two Business Insider South Africa articles mentioned by Arnold that appeared to provide the roots of the "apartheid emerald mine" rumor. R/EnoughMuskSpam via Reddit.com, 5 Dec. 2019, www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/e6j76f/his_family_stole_an_emerald_mine/. The child, a boy named Elliot Rush, is now 5 years old. . Errols other children we also shocked and uncomfortable about the surprise pregnancy. Elon Musk Says He and His Brother Financed Their Father Errol Since 1990s Maye and Errol divorced in 1980 when Elon was about 9 years old. Born in 1971, Musk grew up in Pretoria, South Africa. @Keewa tweeted on May 9, 2020, Remind: Elon Musk inherited money from his fathers apartheid emerald mine, that doesnt mean hes clever. He can't have what he wants and now I am apparently an evil monster.". ", Errol and Elon have an acrimonious relationship. Although Tesla stands out as a groundbreaking company at the forefront of the electric car revolution, its standard operating procedure at the Tesla factory is pre-civil-rights-era race discrimination, Vaughn wrote in his complaint, according to a Daily Beast report. The user tweeted: If this is half of an article is a small glimpse into the apartheid mines his [family-owned] haha even [T]he Onion tells more truthful stories than CNN and Fox. We went to this guys prefab, and he opened his safe, and there [were] just stacks of money, and he paid me out 80,000, It was a huge amount of money, he said. From impregnating his stepdaughter to the emerald mine, here's what we know about Elon Musk's South African father Errol Musk. The way Errol tells it, that all started with an inconvenient religious holiday. However, any reconciliation was apparently short-lived. ERROL IS A RETIRED SOUTH AFRICAN ENGINEER. In my experience, there is nothing you can do, Elon said of Errol. By Michael Hein I tried threats, rewards, intellectual arguments, emotional arguments, everything to try to change my father for the better, and he no way, it just got worse. When Errol and Maye divorced in 1979, a then-8-year-old Elon chose to live with his dad. Thereafter you will be billed R75 per month. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, Elon Musks bid to implant chips into human brains shot down by feds, How the feds spend $74M a year to try to censor Americans, US government-funded research tagged Americans for Twitter ban: report, Tesla stock slumps as Master Plan 3 event falls flat with investors, after confirming he fathered a second secret love child, once rumored to be the co-owner of a Zambian emerald mine, an outspoken advocate for abolishing apartheid, Ashlee Vances 2017 biography of the Tesla founder, that he welcomed twochildren with an executive, second child with his ex-girlfriend, Grimes. More answers and details are available in Arnold's article. This article forms part of the archives of Business Insider South Africa, which was published as a partnership between News24 and Insider Inc between 2018 and 2023. Errol told Business Insider South Africa that he once owned half of an emerald mine in Zambia, which he claimed to have purchased on a whim. "Elon Musk Is the Hero America Deserves." My Dad provided 10% of a ~$200k angel funding round much later, but by then risk was reduced & round would've happened anyway.". ", For his part, Errol told the Daily Mail that Elon "needs to grow up" and "get over himself," adding, "I'm not going to hit back. However, in the recent Channel 4 documentary Elon Musk: Superhero or Supervillain, co-founder of SpaceX, Jim Cattrell, claimed Elon was home at the time. "But I mean, we were living together. https://web.archive.org/. Bill Gates' mom helped Microsoft get a deal with IBM. "I was active in opposing the National Party and their apartheid," he said in the post." On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. "Everybody I knew called him 'the Pig' because he treated me so badly in public. It was revealed last weekthat he welcomed twochildren with an executiveat his artificial intelligence company, Neuralink, just weeks before hissecond child with his ex-girlfriend, Grimes,was born. Meet. We contacted Elon publicly on Twitter. Hull, Dana, and Patrick May. "Tesla, Inc."Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tesla-Motors. In 2017, Errol told Rolling Stone that while he has never intentionally hurt or threatened anyone, he once shot and killed a group of burglars at his home in Johannesburg, though he says he was cleared of all charges because he acted in self-defense. Elon also denied that Errol invested in the company. It was also shared on Reddit.com. Unlike his son, Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk, Errol has mostly flown under the radar, though the father of seven has had an increasingly public profile over the last few years, largely due to his complicated family relationships. "We were lonely, lost people," Errol said. Elon, 51, was brought to tears discussing his dad in a 2017 interview with Rolling Stone, describing him as evil and a terrible human being.. Musk, who is never shy of saying his say online, took to Twitter to show his disappointment with The Onion and took the opportunity to shout-out the publications competition, The Babylon Bee. Musk may not be a great guy, but I fail to see any apartheid link to his fathers emerald mine., @grard97 tweeted, Remind: Elon Musk owns an electric and autonomous car companyA private space landing rockets companyAn AI companyA Neuroscience companyA Solar Panel and energy storage companyThe WHOLE bank on the internet was started by him (yes, your credit card as well), @C49015142 tweeted, I thought I read in Malcolm Gladwells book David and Goliath that his company received $500 million from the US government, so we are all subsidizing him. All the Musk siblings did well, Forbes reported. ", According to the story, Errol said that Elon "once walked the streets of New York with emeralds in his pocket." In South Africa, my father had a private plane we'd fly in incredibly dangerous weather and barely make it back. It is still hard to discern whether this story is true and what conclusions can be drawn. The story included reporting of Elon's denials that the emerald mine had provided any seed money for the wealth he would later accumulate. I was 15 and really wanted to go with him but didn't realize how dangerous it was. Forbes, 1 Oct. 2016, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimclash/2016/10/01/can-elon-musk-really-get-us-to-mars-within-10-years/. Elon Musk Denies The Existence Of His Family's Emerald Mine In Africa ", "You have no idea about how bad. Errol employed a cutter in Johannesburg and sold the stones wherever his travels as an engineer or family holidays took him. SpaceX, his rocket company, is valued at $20 billion-plus. "They just walked into Tiffany's and said, 'Do you want to buy some emeralds?' Business Insider South Africa, 23 Feb. 2018, https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musks-dad-tells-bi-about-the-familys-casual-attitude-to-wealth-2018-2. Errol Musk was born in 1946 in Pretoria to Walter Henry James Musk and Cora Amelia Robinson. What We Know About Elon Musk and the Emerald Mine Rumor It was that lifestyle, Errol says, that turned Elon into the kind of merchant adventurer who would laterbreak the rules of the motoring businesswith Tesla, then go on tochange spaceflight with SpaceX, BI reported. A recurring theme on social media is the claim that Musks father owned an emerald mine and paid for his sons privileged upbringing and education. Musk has denied that story. But that's more or less where the good fortune ended. Musk, Errol. A common story about Musk on social media is that his father owned part of an emerald mine, providing a bedrock of wealth that buoyed Elon up to his current level of success. "He didn't own an emerald mine & I worked my way through college, ending up ~$100k in student debt. With a net worth of $37 billion, Musk hopes to revolutionize transportation on Earth and in space, bringing fully-electric vehicles to the mass market through his auto manufacturing company, Tesla. Though Errol has made headlines in recent years after the births of his two youngest children, he seemingly avoids the spotlight. In a rare interview with Forbes, Errol revealed that his parents were the first to ever fly from South Africa to Australia in a single-engine airplane. Musk's father, Errol, an engineer, married Maye when she was 22, and Musk was born shortly . For a while, I thought things were so obvious that everyone must know this., However, Elon has disputed claims that he grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth. How Elon Musk made his money - from emeralds to SpaceX and Tesla "She wasn't planned," Errol said of his youngest child. "Back when I was ~$100k negative with student debt," he wrote. D'Innocenzio, Anne. Elon Musk's father planned to fly a plane from South Africa to England and sell it once they got there. Errol told Business Insider South Africa that he once owned half of an emerald mine in Zambia, which he claimed to have purchased on a whim. Snopes and the Snopes.com logo are registered service marks of Snopes.com, Image Via PHILIP PACHECO/AFP via Getty Images. "One thing he claims is he gave us a whole bunch of money to start, my brother and I, to start up our first company. This is a pretty awful lie, Elon tweeted. The article attributed the source of Elon Musks wealth to apartheid. So I became a half owner of the mine, and we got emeralds for the next six years.". de Wet, Phillip. In the mid-1980s, the family profited handsomely from Errol Musk's purchasing of an emerald mine, after selling their airplane for 80,000 (the equivalent of 320,000 today). Your membership is the foundation of our sustainability and resilience. Meanwhile, Musk's defenders often say that the mogul has denied this story, though that is not precisely true either. I can't see any reason not to. In 2018, Errol Musk interviewed Business Insider South Africa, where he told a story about bartering his way into partial ownership of an emerald mine in Zambia. A post on Reddit mentioned a theory that said Elon "convinced these publications to remove the articles," but there's no evidence to support that. Instead, Musk has sought to dispel the general belief that he comes from wealth. Curiously, Errol has said nothing more about the controversial emerald mine story in the years since, even in recent interviews like his discussion with Forbes last year. The emerald mine was not mentioned in that interview. r/EnoughMuskSpam via Reddit.com, 18 Dec. 2021, https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/rj689s/elon_musk_and_the_emerald_mine/. Not for 'At Least' a Few Weeks, Says Elon Musk, Elon Musk's Ex Justine Calls Twitter Employees' Letter Protesting Reported Staff Cuts a 'Very Bad Idea', Elon Musk Says He's Buying Twitter to 'Help Humanity' And Doesn't Want It to Be 'Free-for-All Hellscape', Elon Musk Says Kanye West's Twitter Was Reinstated Before He Took Over the Company, Elon Musk Plans to Cut 75 Percent of Twitter's Workforce If He Takes Over the Company: Report. The emerald mine story, reported in 2018 in Business Insider, tells how, in the mid-1980s, Errol acquired a half-share in a Zambian emerald mine, which would help to fund his familys lavish lifestyle of yachts, skiing holidays, and expensive computers.. Elon has himself admitted that his father has a very high IQ and is brilliant at engineering.. [3][4], Musk worked as a pilot, a sailor, an electrical engineer, a mechanical engineer, a consultant, and a property developer, before retiring early. In a 2019 . He had this sense that it was definitely not a safe place to be, and he had to get the hell out.. Address: Riverbank House, 1 Putney Bridge Approach, London, SW6 4TJ. This material may not be reproduced without permission. For a while, I thought things were so obvious that everyone must know this.". This is going to sound slightly crazy, but my father also had a share in an Emerald mine in Zambia. Business Insider South Africa, 22 Feb. 2018, https://www.businessinsider.co.za/elon-musk-sells-the-family-emeralds-in-new-york-2018-2. In Errol's case, we sent a message to his Facebook profile. According to reporting we reviewed, the stake his father had in the emerald mine appeared to have both started and ended in the 1980s. Get to Know Errol Musk, Elon's "Brilliant," "Terrible" Father - MSN It was that lifestyle, Errol says, that turned Elon into the kind of merchant adventurer who would later break the rules of the motoring business with Tesla, then go on to change spaceflight with SpaceX. coming from?. The billionaire, who was born in South Africa, took to Twitter to answer claims made by The Onion about how his family made their money in apartheid South Africa. Errol was born in South Africa to a British mother and a South African father. ", In 2018, he explained that he was helping Jana get over a breakup at the time of Rushi's conception, but he initially assumed the baby's father was Jana's ex. Note: Some of the tweets that promoted the rumor said that Elon did not found Tesla, which was true. "One thing led to another you can call it God's plan or nature's plan. [Jana] stayed here for about 18 months after Rushi was born. Their plane got diverted, which led to a chance meeting with Italians who wanted to buy the plane in cash. An avid pilot and sailor, as well as an electrical and mechanical engineer, he made his money consulting and developing properties and retired early. The Twitter account no longer exists. Who is Errol Musk? What we know about Elon's dad - New York Post The Tesla CEO once called his South African dad 'evil' and denied rumours of family wealth fuelled by an emerald mine - but are they ready to reconcile? Father and son have a complicated history. I wish. Note: The reference to Zip2 concerned Elon's "first enterprise" in 1995. He was only physically violent when I was very young., He also said, You have no idea about how bad. Musk, Elon. He told The New York Times that as a member of the Progressive Party, he opposed apartheid. The entire episode started when the satirical publication The Onion published a piece on the wealthiest person in each American state. When the same pattern of racist behavior happens at all $tsla locations, its the company thats racist, and the fish rots from @elonmusk s head.https://t.co/aKAP7vrT6G https://t.co/EMN9xQH06V. Instead Errol returned to South Africa with a half-share in a Zambian emerald mine, which would help to fund his family's lavish lifestyle of yachts, skiing holidays, and expensive computers.