The patriarch confirmed the shootings to the publication in 2017, saying manslaughter charges were later dropped because he acted in self-defense. 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. Note: The reference to Zip2 concerned Elon's "first enterprise" in 1995. 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.. 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. . Are broader financial markets in a massive speculative bubble? The child, a boy named Elliot Rush, is now 5 years old. We live in a world where facts and fiction get blurred. by Marilynn Manuel 13-02-2023 13:43 He is the father of business magnate and billionaire Elon Musk, restaurateur Kimbal Musk, and filmmaker Tosca Musk. In the interview, the Tesla owner briefly mentioned that his father had a share in an emerald mine in Zambia. One of their homes was in Waterkloof, a leafy suburb of Pretoria that was popular with foreign diplomats. AskMen, 2 Jan. 2015, https://www.askmen.com/entertainment/right-stuff/elon-musk-interview.html. However, any reconciliation was apparently short-lived. In 1972, Errol was elected to the Pretoria City Council in his native South Africa. However, again, the story was at least partially unavailable on that website, too. In Errol's case, we sent a message to his Facebook profile. Almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done.". Errol and a co-pilot were flying a plane from South Africa to England to sell the aircraft but when they couldn't make a scheduled stop in Saudi Arabia, he pivoted his plan and changed his life. The interview is no longer available on the Forbes website. 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. On Wednesday, Errol confirmed that he and Jana had welcomed a second child, a daughter who is now 3. For 14 free days, you can have access to a world of in-depth analyses, investigative journalism, top opinions and a range of features. You could tell by the way that he told the story. odakyu11. ". "What's very difficult for others is easy for me. You have no idea.. ---. According to the Twitter flag, Musk claimed in 2014 to Forbes that he had an emerald mine in Zambia. The Buffalo News via San Jose Mercury News via Newspapers.com, 20 Apr. Musk left his father behind at the age of 17 to pursue his dreams in North America and escape conscription into the South African military. 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. His tweet is now viral with over 9.1 million views. R/EnoughMuskSpam via Reddit.com, 5 Dec. 2019, www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/e6j76f/his_family_stole_an_emerald_mine/. 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. 2021, https://www.theonion.com/the-richest-person-in-every-state-and-how-they-made-the-1846312073. "We went to . And I was too scared to tell anyone [about his violence]," Maye told Harper's Bazaar in 2019. Quora, 9 Mar. 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. "So we decided to head back to Lake Tanganyika from where we were, I think we were in Djibouti.". 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. "They were confronted by it every day," he said. Copyright 2023 Market Realist. People.Com, 7 Nov. 2022, https://people.com/human-interest/who-is-errol-musk-elon-musk-father/. All Rights Reserved. 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. It is still hard to discern whether this story is true and what conclusions can be drawn. ", Errol and Elon have an acrimonious relationship. [11] The family lived in Pretoria,[10][12] where Maye worked as a dietician and a model. Answer these 2 simple questions & WIN R1000 in cash! The 76-year-old is most notable for. 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. He can't have what he wants and now I am apparently an evil monster.". Errol Musk bought 50% of the emerald mine in 1969 for about 40,000, which is equal to about 160 000 today. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. He will plan evil. 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. 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. TheSouthAfrican.com is all about South Africa and the stories that affect South Africans, wherever they are in the world. "We were lonely, lost people," Errol said. All About Errol Musk." ", Musk tackled it on Twitter as the story circulated, but his denials do not explicitly contradict his father's tale of the bizarre airplane-emerald mine trade. To add to the truth, we went to Boston Chicken in Philadelphia for Thanksgiving because we couldnt afford a turkey. Jordan Liles is a Snopes reporter with expertise in investigating misinformation, inauthentic social media activity, and scams. According to the Internet Archive, the article was still available months after it was published, onSept. 1, 2014, but was gone by Sept. 18. In times of uncertainty you need journalism you can trust. Errol told BI that he was flying from his home in South Africa to the U.K. to sell the plane he was on, with a young Elon in tow. At the conference, Elon talked to some professors who told Errol, This boy needs to get his hands on one of these computers. There, the two South Africans ran into a group of Italians who, as it happened, were in the market for an airplane. 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. The 51-year-old has refuted claims that he grew up rich amid statements that his father Errol owned an emerald mine in . [10][11] Musk told Agence France-Presse that he was a strict father who raised his children with discipline and austerity. 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. Elon and other family members have opened up about years of living in debt after they left South Africa. After his divorce from Elons mother, Errol went on to wed HeideBezuidenhout, a young widow who already had two children, including 4-year-old Jana Bezuidenhout. In that way, Errol might be like estranged Elon after all. Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 74: Jamarlin Martin Jamarlin returns for a new season of the GHOGH podcast to discuss Bitcoin, bubbles, and Biden. He told The New York Times that as a member of the Progressive Party, he opposed apartheid. The buyer also offered Errol the option to buy half of an emerald mine with that cash. Reich, theformer secretary of labor under U.S. President Bill Clinton and a professor of public policy at University of California, Berkeley, had tweeted,"Elon Musk came from a family that owned an emerald mine in apartheid South Africa." [15][16] At the time of their marriage, Jana Bezuidenhout was only four years old and lived together with them. ", 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. Kaizer Chiefs to sign more Swallows players. Some of his most vocal detractors have promoted the idea that Musk, like Trump, began his career backed by the deep pockets of dear old dad. Headded, also on Dec. 28, "We started Zip2 with ~$2k from me plus my overclocked home-built PC, ~$5k from my bro & ~$8k from Greg Kouri (such a good guy he is greatly missed). Errol employed a cutter in Johannesburg and sold the stones wherever his travels as an engineer or family holidays took him. His net worth is. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. Errol was a successful consulting engineer, and also owned an emerald mine in Zambia. "He didn't own an emerald mine & I worked my way through college, ending up ~$100k in student debt," Elon tweeted in December 2019. I couldnt even afford a 2nd PC at Zip2, so programmed at night & website only worked during day. "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," he recalled to Business Insider. Went to Queens Univ with scholarship & debt, then same to UPenn/Wharton & Stanford. Fortier, Alexander. 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. ", According to the story, Errol said that Elon "once walked the streets of New York with emeralds in his pocket." ---. One thing most of us can agree on is that there is a more nuanced conversation to be had about how Musk specifically and South Africas white population in general, even those who didnt own mines benefitted from apartheid. Elon was said to be particularly furious that his father had impregnated his stepsister. Elon was a witness to this, bullets flying around, Cattrell further claimed. 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. Arnold, Jeremy. Here's a summary of our findings: We located reporting from as far back as 2009 and 2014 that said when Elon Musk ("Elon" hereafter) was a child in South Africa in the 1980s, his father ("Errol" hereafter) at some point owned "a stake in an emerald mine" near Lake Tanganyika in Zambia, not South Africa. After the divorce, Elon lived mostly with his father until he left South Africa at age 17 partly to avoid conscription in the South African army. By email, Clash told us he had no idea why it was no longer hosted by Forbes. "They just walked into Tiffany's and said, 'Do you want to buy some emeralds?' Errol employed a cutter in Johannesburg and sold the stones wherever his travels as an engineer or family holidays took him. Errols other children we also shocked and uncomfortable about the surprise pregnancy. Elon and Kimbal allegedly sold 2 emeralds: one worth $800 and another worth $1200. On their way to England, Errol and his copilot got word that their original flight plan was going to cost a lot of money. Errol and Jana welcomed a son, Elliot "Rushi" Rush, in 2017 and a daughter in 2019. 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. But that's more or less where the good fortune ended. Hull, Dana, and Patrick May. Elon also denied that Errol invested in the company. The same story appeared to have also been published the day before with the headline, "A teenage Elon Musk once casually sold his father's emeralds to Tiffany & Co. while his dad was sleeping. Errol Musk, an engineer, owned a small percentage of an emerald mine and had a couple of good years before the mine went bust and wiped out his investment. The tweet was shared as a screenshot on Imgur.com, which showed the image had been viewed more than 300,000 times. Elon Musk's father planned to fly a plane from South Africa to England and sell it once they got there. "Like every abused woman, I was embarrassed, and I knew I had made a mistake, you know? The eccentric billionaire once again attempted to set the record straight about his familys emerald mines to respond to Twitter user @howlpolitically. * The headline of this article was updated toreflect that the Musk family once owned the mine in question, and no longer do. He once tweeted he arrived in 1989, not 1988, however. I left South Africa by myself when I was 17 with just a backpack & suitcase of books. "I'm naturally good at engineering that's because I inherited it from my father," he told Rolling Stone. 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/. "She wasn't planned," Errol said of his youngest child. Chromatica Warrior @DebbieTweeted Can he be held responsible for his dads ethics tho? Vance wrote, "For what it's worth, my reporting, based on conversations with hundreds of people, confirms Musk's story. What Happened: Musk's comments came on a Twitter. Still, it wasarchived by the Internet Archive. 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. Business Insider South Africa, 22 Feb. 2018, https://www.businessinsider.co.za/elon-musk-sells-the-family-emeralds-in-new-york-2018-2. In 2018, Musk also told Business Insider that his father Errol purchased a 50 per cent share in the mine after selling a plane. "A Teenage Elon Musk Once Casually Sold His Father's Emeralds to Tiffany & Co. 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 up ~$100k in student debt. [22] He is estranged from his son Elon. 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. It was not a good idea.. Ask him." [23], In 1998, Musk shot and killed three out of six or seven burglars who forced their way into his Johannesburg home and who opened fire upon detection.[24]. In an interview with Express, Cattrell recalled: One night, they were sitting in the living room and his dad said Everybody down! He was married to Maye Musk and also to Heide Musk, with whom he has two children, Alexandra and Rose. The story included reporting of Elon's denials that the emerald mine had provided any seed money for the wealth he would later accumulate. Elon Musk said he and his brother have supported their father since he "ran out of money in 90s." He was reacting to a tweet saying he was from a family that owned an African emerald mine.. 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. "Elon Musk's Vision of an Electric-Car Future." ", He grew up in South Africa and had the good fortune of doing so in an upper-middle-class home. 2023 The Moguldom Nation. "I said, 'Oh, all right'. Earlier in this story, we referenced a July 3, 2020, tweet from Elon that mentioned Vance's interview. 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. ", 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.". 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. FIVE THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT ERROL MUSK 1. [Jana] stayed here for about 18 months after Rushi was born. Meanwhile, Elon has himself admitted that his father has a very high IQ and is brilliant at engineering. In 2017, he also told Rolling Stone that Errol was the youngest person to get a professional engineers qualification in South Africa., Im naturally good at engineering thats because I inherited it from my father, the worlds richest man stated. "[4][8], In 1972, he was elected to the Pretoria City Council as a representative of the anti-apartheid Progressive Party. At 17, Musk decided to leave home, heading first to Canada and then the U.S. for university. The 76-year-old hasnt ruled out having more children, saying: The only thing we are on Earth for is to reproduce.. This story was picked up by other news outlets and peddled as a sign of the Musk family's "lavish lifestyle. Later, on Sept. 20, 2022, hecalledRobert Reich "an idiot and a liar" for tweeting a video that pushed the emerald mine wealth rumor as fact. He was such a terrible human being. 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. That conversation is more valuable but less newsworthy than just resurfacing the same lazy claims every few months, which are guaranteed to get clicks. They still dont like it. The article attributed the source of Elon Musks wealth to apartheid. "Elon Musk Tells Me His Secret Of Success (Hint: It Ain't About The Money)." There is a more nuanced conversation to be had about how Elon Musk specifically and South Africas white population in general benefitted from apartheid. Elon Musk (~16 years old) & Kimbal Musk sold gems from the Zambian emerald mine to world-famous "Tiffany & Co." on Fifth Avenue in New York - one of the world's most famous jewelers. He's the son of Maye Musk, a model and dietitian from Canada, and Errol Musk, a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, and sailor. Musk's defenders have also pointed out that Errol's alleged trade took place in the mid-1980s, at which point Zambia was independent. 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. The headline of the story read, "Elon Musk Tells Me His Secret Of Success (Hint: It Ain't About The Money).". Errol and a co-pilot were flying a plane from. "Elon Musk's family owns an emerald mine" was corrected to "Elon Musk's family once owned an emerald mine." 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. Jeff Bezos' garage-based start was funded by a quarter . 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. Imgur, 5 Dec. 2019, https://imgur.com/SHGhIY2. "There's no evidence whatsoever of an 'emerald mine,'" the last part of the tweet read. 2021, https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Elon-Musks-family-got-their-wealth-from-apartheid-emerald-mining. Given Elon Musks interest in exploration and adventure, its no surprise he descends from intrepid stock, and its Errols side of the family that is seemingly responsible for his innovative, envelope-pushing genes. Still, Elon's tweets leave just enough room for Errol's story to be accurate, even if the inferences about his family's wealth are not. I couldnt even afford a 2nd PC at Zip2, so programmed at night & website only worked during day. In a 2019 . Smart Policies are as low as $30 a month, No Medical Exam Required Since at least 2018, a rumor has been shared online about Tesla CEO and Twitter owner Elon Musk in regard to his father's purported past ownership of an "apartheid emerald mine" or "slave emerald mine." Errol Musk was born in 1946 in Pretoria to Walter Henry James Musk and Cora Amelia Robinson. Bill Gates' mom helped Microsoft get a deal with IBM. I've tried everything. Instead, they focus on describing how hard he worked in his teenage years and early adulthood, how much debt he accrued by attending college and his disdain for his father. 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. "I screwed up the marriage, I was totally responsible. Maye and Errol divorced in 1980 when Elon was about 9 years old. Musk's father said that Tiffanys set the $800 emerald in a ring and offered it for $24,000, which he said was an object lesson in retail markup for the family. The emerald mine was not mentioned in that interview. Errol Musk, the father of Elon Musk, told British tabloid The Sun Wednesday that he had a second and previously-unknown child with his stepdaughter, Jana Bezuidenhout, in 2019 leaving many. In my experience, there is nothing you can do, Elon said of Errol. ", Elon has said one of the reasons he is so skilled at engineering is because of his father. Although Musk said that his father was brilliant at engineering in the Rolling Stone interview, thats where the praise ended. With his new riches, Errol also bought half of an emerald mine. The Onion, a satirical publication, shared. Im not sure if replying to a satire site and amplifying their articles reach is necessarily the best idea, but Musk felt that this was a hill worth dying on. I can't see any reason not to. Click Here to Get Smart on Protecting Your Family and Loves Ones, No Matter What Happens. The article was titled, "I Talked to Elon Musk about Journalism and the Blood Emeralds Story.". ---. 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. All rights reserved. "I Talked to Elon Musk about Journalism and the Blood Emeralds Story." 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. 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. An avid pilot and sailor, as well as an electrical and mechanical engineer, he made his money consulting and developing properties and retired early. Where is this bs coming from? 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.. Note: Reporting from Esquire.com said that Elon moved from South Africa to Canada in 1988. Get down!'. Clash, Jim. He also called the whole rumor "BS.". Elon called the story "actually accurate." 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. In the mid 1980s, Elon Musks father Errol and a copilot were on their way to England aboard a plane they hoped to sell when they landed there. 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 . In 1970, Errol married modelMaye Haldeman Musk before the pair welcomed three children: Elon, Kimbal and Tosca. Moneycontrol.com, 21 Sept. 2022, https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/trends/elon-musk-hits-out-at-us-professor-over-emerald-mine-claims-idiot-and-liar-9208281.html. Snopes and the Snopes.com logo are registered service marks of Snopes.com, Image Via PHILIP PACHECO/AFP via Getty Images. Former Tesla employees have reported racist behavior and attempted to sue over it. He will plan evil, Elon tearfully told Rolling Stone in 2017. I said, Oh, all right. CEO Elon Musk said his father Errol ran out of money in the '90s and was provided financial support by the entrepreneur and his brother. Elon, by his father's recollection then probably 16 years old, and his brother Kimbal, decided to sell emeralds to Tiffany & Co. on Fifth Avenue in New York . His parents divorced. Wayback Machine. I said, Oh, all right. 1/2This article is false. Elon Musks family wealth has once again resurfaced as a talking point.