Clash, Jim. The interview is no longer available on the Forbes website. 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). "There's no evidence whatsoever of an 'emerald mine,'" the last part of the tweet read. [13] After engaging in extra-marital affairs,[4] Errol and Maye divorced in 1979, and both sons moved in with their father. 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. On May 22, 2020, Bloomberg.com published an interview with Elon, which was penned by Ashlee Vance. To me, he sure is trying to make the world better right now, and thats the best thing he could do with his fathers money. Chromatica Warrior @DebbieTweeted Can he be held responsible for his dads ethics tho? More answers and details are available in Arnold's article. "A Teenage Elon Musk Once Casually Sold His Father's Emeralds to Tiffany & Co. Clearly, Elon Musk doesn't like being mocked. ", 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. I can't see any reason not to. It would have been great if someone was paying for my college, but my dad had neither the ability nor the inclination to do so. It was a lucrative decision. Recently, Elon Musk had to set the record straight on a narrative spun over three years ago about his family owning an emerald mine in South Africa. Earlier in this story, we referenced a July 3, 2020, tweet from Elon that mentioned Vance's interview. 1995 - 2023 by Snopes Media Group Inc. Copyright 2023 Market Realist. In times of uncertainty you need journalism you can trust. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. 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. The Buffalo News via San Jose Mercury News via Newspapers.com, 20 Apr. [22] He is estranged from his son Elon. [11][5] Maye has stated that Errol beat her. He began his career as an electromechanical engineer. 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. "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. At 17, Musk decided to leave home, heading first to Canada and then the U.S. for university. 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. [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). "Exploring the otherworldly ambitions of Elon Musk", "How To Raise A Billionaire: An Interview With Elon Musk's Father, Errol Musk", "Who Is Elon Musk's Estranged Father? You can cancel anytime and if you cancel within 14 days you won't be billed. "She wasn't planned," Errol said of his youngest child. Facebook, 27 July 2020, https://www.facebook.com/errol.musk/posts/10218340000911015. [3][4], Musk worked as a pilot, a sailor, an electrical engineer, a mechanical engineer, a consultant, and a property developer, before retiring early. Errol and a co-pilot were flying a plane from. In addition, they offered Errol a chance to buy partial ownership of a Zambian emerald mine. 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). An avid pilot and sailor, as well as an electrical and mechanical engineer, he made his money consulting and developing properties and retired early. Our offices are for administrative purposes only, no visitors will be accepted without an appointment. Born in 1971, Musk grew up in Pretoria, South Africa. 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.. Where is this B.S. "Elon Musk: The College Years." There is a more nuanced conversation to be had about how Elon Musk specifically and South Africas white population in general benefitted from apartheid. 2014, https://www.newspapers.com/image/878211644/. Jump to Main content Search Account Menu icon A vertical stack of three evenly spaced horizontal. 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. AskMen, 2 Jan. 2015, https://www.askmen.com/entertainment/right-stuff/elon-musk-interview.html. According to the story, in the mid-1980s, Errol and a copilot landed their plane near Lake Tanganyika in Zambia, where "a group of Italians" offered them 80,000 pounds in British currency in order to buy the plane. I'm going to wait until he comes to his senses. In the meantime, Musk continues to make waves on multiple technological fronts, all while raising concerns about workers' rights and income inequality. According to the Twitter flag, Musk claimed in 2014 to Forbes that he had an emerald mine in Zambia. 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 continued: He grabbed some weapons, as you could see on the cameras there were some intruders that were coming over the walls, and they were also armed. Former Tesla employee Marcus Vaughn, who worked in the Fremont, California, factory in 2017, alleged that the companys production floor was a hotbed for racist behavior. Supervisors regularly used the N word around Black workers and he said he was fired after complaining to human resources about workplace harassment. 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." We reached out to Clash and Forbes PR to ask why the interview was no longer available. Elon Musk came from a family that owned an emerald mine in Apartheid South Africa. "In my experience, there is nothing you can do," he added. All Rights Reserved. I couldnt even afford a 2nd PC at Zip2, so programmed at night & website only worked during day. 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. 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. Thereafter you will be billed R75 per month. After obtaining the mine, he tells that he had so much money, that 'he couldn't close his safe'. 2021, https://www.theonion.com/the-richest-person-in-every-state-and-how-they-made-the-1846312073. Elon clarified that his father was never physically abusive toward him and that he once tried to mend the relationship by inviting his father to live with him in the United States. So I became a half owner of the mine, 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. EM: Company death not succeeding with the company causes me a lot more stress than physical danger. 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 has himself admitted that his father has a very high IQ and is brilliant at engineering.. You could tell by the way that he told the story. . Errol employed a cutter in Johannesburg and sold the stones wherever his travels as an engineer or family holidays took him. 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. According to reporting we reviewed, the stake his father had in the emerald mine appeared to have both started and ended in the 1980s. 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. So I became a half owner of the mine, and we got emeralds for the next six years.". This is not true," Elon told Rolling Stone in 2017. "Elon Musk Is the Hero America Deserves." By Michael Hein There was a shooting in the living room, and I guess his father shot them dead. 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. Like his son, the wealthy business owner who was once rumored to be the co-owner of a Zambian emerald mine has also been mired in controversy. [1] His father was a South African veteran of World War II and his mother was British. He told me over and over that I was stupid, ugly, boring. "I started my first company with $2,500, and I had one computer and a car that I bought for $1,400, and all that debt. [17] Later in life, after splitting from Heide Bezuidenhout, he fathered two children with her daughter (his former step-daughter) Jana Bezuidenhout; a son born in 2017 and a daughter born in 2019. 2021, https://savingjournalism.substack.com/p/i-talked-to-elon-musk-about-journalism. In December 2019, Elon denied the emerald mine-and-lavish-lifestyle story on Twitter, saying it was a lie. And then thered still be all these notes sticking out, and wed sort of pull them out and put them in our pockets.. We did not receive a response from Forbes PR. This is a pretty awful lie. 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. The tweet was shared as a screenshot on Imgur.com, which showed the image had been viewed more than 300,000 times. D'Innocenzio, Anne. Offers may be subject to change without notice. "I screwed up the marriage, I was totally responsible. 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. 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. ", The Tesla founder also said there was no way to repair his relationship with his father. 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. He told The New York Times that as a member of the Progressive Party, he opposed apartheid. In that context, its probably understandable that Musk decided enough was enough and felt he needed to answer the claims online. Elon Musk does not care about Black people.Example after example after example. He also added, "'Self-made billionaires' are a myth." They never made it to their destination. 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. [15][16] At the time of their marriage, Jana Bezuidenhout was only four years old and lived together with them. Elon may have been 6 or 7 years old at the time and begged his dad to get him a ticket to a very early computer conference in South Africa. Vance, Ashlee. 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. 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. Still, it wasarchived by the Internet Archive. Worked on my Moms cousins farm in Saskatchewan & a lumber mill in Vancouver. Errol and Heide eventually divorced after an 18-year marriage. Elon Musk was highlighted as the wealthiest resident of Texas, Americas second-biggest state. However, both Elon and . 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.". After the end of the article, a note was added that read, "BI SA reached out to Elon for confirmation of the tale, but he did not respond. The Musk name might be one of the most recognizable on the planet, but little is known about its patriarch, Errol Musk. I wish. Quora, 9 Mar. 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. [2] His grandmother was the first chiropractor in Canada. Elon was said to be particularly furious that his father had impregnated his stepsister. Bloomberg.com, 22 May 2020, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-05-22/elon-musk-speaks-frankly-on-coronavirus-spacex-and-rage-tweets. 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. He didnt own an emerald mine & I worked my way through college, ending up ~$100k in student debt. All Rights Reserved. Jeff Bezos' garage-based start was funded by a quarter . 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. I couldnt even afford a 2nd PC at Zip2, so programmed at night & website only worked during day. My dad was not physically violent with me. Vance wrote, "For what it's worth, my reporting, based on conversations with hundreds of people, confirms Musk's story.
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