Get to Know Errol Musk, Elon's "Brilliant," "Terrible" Father The child, a boy named Elliot Rush, is now 5 years old. Almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done., He was such a terrible human being. luis carruthers @orthereaboot tweeted, When the same pattern of racist behavior happens at all $tsla locations, its the company thats racist, and the fish rots from @elonmusks head.. The rumor of the "apartheid emerald mine" received a spike in shares around the time that Elon Musk completed his takeover of Twitter in late 2022. All Rights Reserved. Errol was a successful consulting engineer, and also owned an emerald mine in Zambia. You have no idea. In the past, the Tesla CEO hasrespondedseveral times on Twitter about the emerald mine rumors. "I'm naturally good at engineering that's because I inherited it from my father," he told Rolling Stone. But little else is known about Errol outside of his native South Africa, where he has made a name for himself as a high-powered engineer, property developer and political advocate who vehemently opposed apartheid. Wanderlust ran on both sides of the family. We were going to fly into Jeddah and there was a religious holiday and they said if we come in now we have to pay $2,000 but if we wait 10 days we can come in at no charge. But I didnt really understand at the time what kind of person he was. More answers and details are available in Arnold's article. 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. The interview is no longer available on the Forbes website. Journalism strengthens democracy. ", Elon has said one of the reasons he is so skilled at engineering is because of his father. He was such a terrible human being. Errol and Heide had two children of their own, but he also helped raise Jana. Errol and a co-pilot were flying a plane from. "One thing led to another you can call it God's plan or nature's plan. And, on at least one occasion, his now famous son also took his hand at dealing in the gems, with peculiar results. 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. Elon Musk says he had six figures in student debt after college - CNBC Elon was said to be particularly furious that his father had impregnated his stepsister. According to the story, "When [Elon] was elevenabout the time that he sold his first piece of software, a video game called Blastar Musk told his mother that he was going to move back to Pretoria to live with his father, Errol, an electrical engineer who would later own an auto-parts store and a share in an emerald mine.". The way Errol tells it, that all started with an inconvenient religious holiday. Your membership is the foundation of our sustainability and resilience. ---. In an email to Rolling Stone, Musk's father said he smacked the Tesla CEO only once and on the bottom. He also said that the only criminal charges that had been filed against him from when he killed three home invaders in self-defense had been cleared. 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. At some point after the shooting, the relationship between dad Errol and son Elon soured. As well as providing links, people started commenting Musk's own words back at him under his tweet. Elon Musks family wealth has once again resurfaced as a talking point. Jeff Bezos' garage-based start was funded by a quarter . Elon Musk came from a family that owned an emerald mine in Apartheid South Africa. What We Know About Elon Musk and the Emerald Mine Rumor Ive tried everything. While His Dad Was Sleeping." He will plan evil, Elon tearfully told Rolling Stone in 2017. The share in the mine wasnt acquired until the 1980s. The tweet was shared as a screenshot on Imgur.com, which showed the image had been viewed more than 300,000 times. 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. 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. [11][5] Maye has stated that Errol beat her. In times of uncertainty you need journalism you can trust. Copyright 2023 Market Realist. In a February 2018 interview with Business Insider South Africa, Musk's father said he did own half share in an emerald mine in Zambia. Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. He said that they stopped in Djibouti to avoid pricey airport fees, and there happened to meet some Italian merchants who offered to buy the plane from him then and there. For a while, I thought things were so obvious that everyone must know this.". Kimbal is a millionaire who owns restaurant chains and spearheads a nonprofit education program, The Kitchen Community, which grows vegetables in the U.S. Tosca is a film producer and director. "Exploring the Otherworldly Ambitions of Elon Musk." He was bullied at school. 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. Business Insider South Africa, 28 Feb. 2018, https://www.businessinsider.co.za/how-elon-musks-family-came-to-own-an-emerald-mine-2018-2. As Arnold noted, the headline for this story was later corrected more than two years after it was published, sometime around late July or early August 2020,according to page captures from the Internet Archive. Fact Check: Did Elon Musk Inherit Apartheid Money From His - Moguldom Twitter, https://twitter.com/elonmusk/. The article's headline was changed in late July or early August 2020, which appeared to be after Errol made his Facebook poston July 27, which called the dated article's claims into question. Address: Regus Business Centre 1st Floor, Block B, North Park, Black River Park, 2 Fir Street, Observatory, Cape Town, 7925, South Africa Postal: Blue Sky Publications (Pty) Ltd T/A TheSouthAfrican, PO Box 44354, Claremont, 7735, South Africa, United Kingdom Blue Sky Publications Ltd Company Registration Number: 04683692. In 2017, family members were left stunned when Jana became pregnant with Errols baby. If I could have another child I would. 1995 - 2023 by Snopes Media Group Inc. However, that as well as Errol's claim of owning half of an emerald mine is in stark contrast to what Elon has said about his father's wealth. This story will be updated if any further details come to light. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. 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. Still, it wasarchived by the Internet Archive. "He didn't own an emerald mine & I worked my way through college, ending up ~$100k in student debt. This is a pretty awful lie, Elon tweeted. You could tell by the way that he told the story. 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? 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. While he has given a few rare interviews, much of the publicly known information about him has come from his estranged son Elon or his ex-wife Maye Musk, neither of whom have had complimentary things to say about the engineer and onetime emerald mine owner. Elon Musk addressed the recent social storm when claims related his family's emerald mines in apartheid-South Africa resurfaced online. "So we decided to head back to Lake Tanganyika from where we were, I think we were in Djibouti.". 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.. In an interview with Business Insider South Africa, Errol admitted that, at one point, he literally made more money than he could physically handle. There is a more nuanced conversation to be had about how Elon Musk specifically and South Africas white population in general benefitted from apartheid. We live in a world where facts and fiction get blurred. 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. ", 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. We also reached out to both men for additional comment and to ask if they could potentially provide any evidence that would support their statements, even though they didn't start the rumor. In that context, its probably understandable that Musk decided enough was enough and felt he needed to answer the claims online. 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. On their way to England, Errol and his copilot got word that their original flight plan was going to cost a lot of money. "I screwed up the marriage, I was totally responsible. In a 2019 . " he told the outlet. Their half-sister.. Elon Musk: The Truth About His Dad and Emerald Mines - Trending AskMen, 2 Jan. 2015, https://www.askmen.com/entertainment/right-stuff/elon-musk-interview.html. His grandmother broke barriers of her own, becoming the first-ever chiropractor in Canada. 2014, https://www.newspapers.com/image/878211644/. You have no idea.. Errol met Maye Haldeman the lady who would become his wife at Clapham High School. There, the two South Africans ran into a group of Italians who, as it happened, were in the market for an airplane. [20] At the time of their daughter's birth, according to The Times, Musk was 72 and Jana Bezuidenhout was 30 years old. Elon Musk's father, Errol Musk, remains a mysterious figure, and there is still no common consensus how his work or his wealth during Elon's childhood. "And we got emeralds for the next six years.". Below, we have laid out all of the data that we found, including examples of the rumor, as well as stories from newspaper archives and blogs. Arnold paraphrased his answers, publishing that he said "it was a handshake deal with a Panamanian man that resulted in something like 110 emeralds up front and then a semi-regular trickle of rough stones over a few years following," and that "there was never formal ownership.". Almost every crime you can possibly think of, he has done, he continued. The entire episode started when the satirical publication The Onion published a piece on the wealthiest person in each American state. Once the Musk emerald story started circulating, and information about Musk's father Errol's past business dealings got out, a cavalcade of internet poo-pooers flocked to Twitter to lambast Musk . "So I became a half-owner of the mine, and we got emeralds for the next six years," Errol said. ", Five days later on Feb. 28, Business Insider SA published a second article with the headline, "Elon Musk's family owns an emerald mine in Zambia here's the fascinating story of how they came to own it.". odakyu11. You can cancel anytime and if you cancel within 14 days you won't be billed. [10] She gave birth to three children; Elon Reeve Musk born on 28 June 1971, Kimbal Reeve Musk born on 20 September 1972, and Tosca Musk born on 20 July 1974. [13] After engaging in extra-marital affairs,[4] Errol and Maye divorced in 1979, and both sons moved in with their father. ---. We sought evidence in the case that they still had any documentation from past decades about the mine, the around $100,000 in student debt that Elon has repeatedly said he had accumulated during college, or anything else related to Elon's early finances that they have mentioned in past interviews. [2] In 1969, he became a 50% owner of an emerald mine on Lake Tanganyika,[2][5] that he bought for 40,000, funded by selling an airplane for 80,000 (the equivalent of 320,000 today). In 1970, Errol married modelMaye Haldeman Musk before the pair welcomed three children: Elon, Kimbal and Tosca. The 76-year-old is most notable for. Where is this B.S. My dad was not physically violent with me. * The headline of this article was updated toreflect that the Musk family once owned the mine in question, and no longer do. However, any reconciliation was apparently short-lived. On an undisclosed date, Errol reportedly shot and killed three of up to a half-dozen armed intruders who broke into his Johannesburg home, according to Rolling Stone. Snopes and the Snopes.com logo are registered service marks of Snopes.com, Image Via PHILIP PACHECO/AFP via Getty Images. However, both Elon and . Musk had earlier slammed Reich for misrepresenting his background in the post, which argued that "self-made billionaires are a myth" and named the SpaceX founder and other prominent business. He is the father of business magnate and billionaire Elon Musk, restaurateur Kimbal Musk, and filmmaker Tosca Musk. Almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done. According to reporting we reviewed, the stake his father had in the emerald mine appeared to have both started and ended in the 1980s. I couldn't find my passport so I ended up grabbing my brother's which turned out to be six months overdue! Musk readily jumps onto Twitter to refute the charges that his empire was forged with the aid of family wealth, and part of the reason he wanted to talk to merather comically given the rocket launch and, well, trollswas because the jabs bug him, and he hopes to set the record straight. He's the son of Maye Musk, a model and dietitian from Canada, and Errol Musk, a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, and sailor. "There was just stacks of money and he paid me out, 80,000, it was a huge amount of money." "I was active in opposing the National Party and their apartheid," he said in the post." According to Ashlee Vances 2017 biography of the Tesla founder, The Musk family owned one of the biggest houses in Pretoria thanks to the success of Errols engineering business, which included large projects such as office buildings, retail complexes, residential subdivisions, and an air force base.. What We Know About Elon Musk and the Emerald Mine Rumor The buyer also offered Errol the option to buy half of an emerald mine with that cash. I couldnt even afford a 2nd PC at Zip2, so programmed at night & website only worked during day. Copyright Blue Sky Publications Ltd. All Rights Reserved. . He talks about the risk factors for Bitcoin as an investment asset including origin risk, speculative market structure, regulatory, and environment. By some accounts, Elon is reported to have witnessed the attack, with Errol later telling Rolling Stone that he acted in self-defense; he was never convicted of any crime. Regardless of your opinion of him, he is aself-made billionaire. Image via Instagram @mayemusk. 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? Once the kids were living with me, they visited their father some weekends. We reached out to AskMen.com to ask if the fact that some of the pages were gone was a glitch, or if it was a purposeful partial removal. It was a lucrative decision. I couldnt even afford a second [computer] at [web software company] Zip2, so [I] programmed at night and the website only worked during the day. Behind the billions: Inside Errol Musk's emerald mine, net worth & scandals So I became a half owner of the mine, and we got emeralds for the next six years., When the Tesla CEO was around 16 years old, he and his brother Kimbal sold two emeralds to Tiffany & Co. on Fifth Avenue in New York City while Errol snoozed, according to what Musk's father told Business Insider South Africa. Quora, 9 Mar. He said, They just walked into Tiffanys and said, Do you want to buy some emeralds? And they sold two emeralds: one was for $800, and I think the other one was for $1,200. Bill Gates' mom helped Microsoft get a deal with IBM. The Musk name might be one of the most recognizable on the planet, but little is known about its patriarch, Errol Musk. They never made it to their destination. It was not a good idea.. ANC accuses De Ruyter of ruining its good name and reputation, BREAKING: Chiefs confirm another MASSIVE injury blow. By Michael Hein "Zip2." [6][7] In a 2018 interview with Business Insider, Musk boasted that as a result of the emerald mine "we had so much money we couldn't even close our safe. From impregnating his stepdaughter to the emerald mine, here's what we know about Elon Musk's South African father Errol Musk. Elon would later get his own pilot's license but no longer has time to fly. ". Viral: When Elon Musk's bank account was in negative due to student Went to Queens Univ with scholarship & debt, then same to UPenn/Wharton & Stanford., In a follow-up tweet, Elon said his father didnt own an emerald mine & I worked my way through college, ending up ~$100k in student debt.. SpaceX, his rocket company, is valued at $20 billion-plus. Elon Musk has a wild story!" he captioned it. "They didn't like it.". Thereafter you will be billed R75 per month. Jain, Sanya. It is still hard to discern whether this story is true and what conclusions can be drawn. Almost every crime you can possibly think of, he has done. Who is Errol Musk? What we know about Elon's dad - New York Post Elon Musk's family once owned an emerald mine in Zambia here's the In April 2014, Dana Hull and Patrick May penned an article for San Jose's The Mercury News with the headline, "The otherworldly ambitions of Elon Musk." Bridges to Italy tweeted, Yeah, hes not that bright, just like the guy who started this thread. Not all the tweets were supportive of Elon. Errol told Business Insider South Africa that he co-owned an emerald mine in Zambia. Worked on my Moms cousins farm in Saskatchewan & a lumber mill in Vancouver. In his interview with Business Insider South Africa, Errol said that he was to blame for his divorce from model Maye Musk, with whom he shares Elon, Kimbal and Tosca. Errol employed a cutter in Johannesburg and sold the stones wherever his travels as an engineer or family holidays took him. In my experience, there is nothing you can do, Elon said of Errol. Almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done.". I arrived by myself in Canada in 89 with ~CA$2500 Paid my own way through college, ending with ~$100k student debt Started 1st company with no funding & just one computer I built Theres no evidence whatsoever of an emerald mine, 2/2My father & his extended family have been dependent on financial support from my brother & me for over 20 years. Ask him." Elon and other family members have opened up about years of living in debt after they left South Africa. These tweets from December 2019 appeared to have stemmed, at least in part, from a since-deleted tweet from a user with the handle @1aprildaniels. "Elon Musk Is the Hero America Deserves." Address: Riverbank House, 1 Putney Bridge Approach, London, SW6 4TJ. Errol Musk - Wikipedia Kaizer Chiefs to sign more Swallows players. 2021, https://savingjournalism.substack.com/p/i-talked-to-elon-musk-about-journalism. Hes the son of Maye Musk, a model and dietitian from Canada, and Errol Musk, a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, and sailor. ", Inoneof the tweets from Elon in which he refuted the emerald mine rumor, he linked to an article that had been published on March 9, 2021. The article was titled, "I Talked to Elon Musk about Journalism and the Blood Emeralds Story.". Chromatica Warrior @DebbieTweeted Can he be held responsible for his dads ethics tho? Related stories Making better AI is Elon Musk's new object of . And then thered still be all these notes sticking out, and wed sort of pull them out and put them in our pockets.. Musk, Bezos, Gates: How these billionaires got their start Errol Musk was born in 1946 in Pretoria to Walter Henry James Musk and Cora Amelia Robinson. We had so much money at times we couldn't even close our safe," Errol said, explaining that one person would hold the money down while a second would slam the safe door shut. My dad will have a carefully thought-out plan of evil. Errol has long since retired from the engineering business and now lives a quiet life in the Western Cape in South Africa. Inside the fabulous Dior couture world of 'Mrs. In the interview, the Tesla owner briefly mentioned that his father had a share in an emerald mine in Zambia. Arnold's story included answers from Errol about the mine, who said he had "very limited involvement" in it. [3][4], Musk worked as a pilot, a sailor, an electrical engineer, a mechanical engineer, a consultant, and a property developer, before retiring early. . Elon called the story "actually accurate." They still feel a bit creepy about it., They still dont like it, Errol admitted in a new interview withthe Sun: They still feel a bit creepy about it because shes their sister. [2] His grandmother was the first chiropractor in Canada. We also reached out to media relations personnel at SpaceX, where he is the founder and CEO, as well as Tesla and Twitter. ", 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. At 17, Musk decided to leave home, heading first to Canada and then the U.S. for university. An avid pilot and sailor, as well as an electrical and mechanical engineer, he made his money consulting and developing properties and retired early. Earlier in this story, we referenced a July 3, 2020, tweet from Elon that mentioned Vance's interview. 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. EM: Company death not succeeding with the company causes me a lot more stress than physical danger. He told me over and over that I was stupid, ugly, boring. Here is the incredible true story of Errol Musk and the striking similarities he shares with his powerful son. Get down!'. Forbes, 28 July 2014, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimclash/2014/07/28/elon-musk-tells-me-his-secret-of-success-hint-it-aint-about-the-money/.