D'Innocenzio, Anne. In a 2019 . To me, he sure is trying to make the world better right now, and that's the best thing he could do with his father's money. 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. Wanderlust ran on both sides of the family. "There's no evidence whatsoever of an 'emerald mine,'" the last part of the tweet read. Almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done.". 1995 - 2023 by Snopes Media Group Inc. If I could have another child I would. He told The New York Times that as a member of the Progressive Party, he opposed apartheid. @spylinen tweeted, The mine was in Zambia, which became independent of the UK in 1964. According to the Twitter flag, Musk claimed in 2014 to Forbes that he had an emerald mine in Zambia. Are you prioritizing your cable entertainment bill over protecting and investing in your family? Worked on my Moms cousins farm in Saskatchewan & a lumber mill in Vancouver. He is the father of business magnate and billionaire Elon Musk, restaurateur Kimbal Musk, and filmmaker Tosca Musk. 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. The story included reporting of Elon's denials that the emerald mine had provided any seed money for the wealth he would later accumulate. Move over, Elon theres another Musk hitting the headlines. Elon Musks family wealth has once again resurfaced as a talking point. . 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. [Jana] stayed here for about 18 months after Rushi was born. His grandmother broke barriers of her own, becoming the first-ever chiropractor in Canada. 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., Errol subsequently told the publication in an email: Ive been accused of being a Gay, a Misogynist, a Paedophile, a Traitor, a Rat, a St (quite often), a Bastard (by many women whose attentions I did not return) and much more. Errol made money by consulting and developing properties, Forbes reported. On March 25, 2021, Elon Musktweetedthat the emerald mine inheritance rumor was false, and that he had arrived by himself in Canada in 1989 "with ~CA$2,500." Here is the incredible true story of Errol Musk and the striking similarities he shares with his powerful son. Aside from that hes just dumb. However, again, the story was at least partially unavailable on that website, too. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Almost every crime you can possibly think of, he has done, he continued. He confirmed the birth of their daughter to The Sun in 2022. ", 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. Regardless of your opinion of him, he is aself-made billionaire. I couldn't find my passport so I ended up grabbing my brother's which turned out to be six months overdue! "I said, 'Oh, all right'. 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. I couldn't even afford a 2nd PC at Zip2, so programmed at night & website only worked during day. Bloomberg.com, 22 May 2020. www.bloomberg.com, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-05-22/elon-musk-speaks-frankly-on-coronavirus-spacex-and-rage-tweets. In the past, the Tesla CEO hasrespondedseveral times on Twitter about the emerald mine rumors. [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 Musk does not care about Black people.Example after example after example. "Who Is Elon Musk's Estranged Father? 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. He didnt own an emerald mine & I worked my way through college, ending up ~$100k in student debt. The buyer also offered Errol the option to buy half of an emerald mine with that cash. For a while, I thought things were so obvious that everyone must know this.". ---. 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.". On Feb. 23, 2018, Business Insider SA published a story with the headline, "'We had so much money we couldn't even close our safe': Elon Musk's Dad tells BI about the family's insanely casual attitude to wealth." The Twitter account no longer exists. 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. He also claimed, "My father & his extended family have been dependent on financial support from my brother & me for over 20 years.". But I didnt really understand at the time what kind of person he was. [1] His father was a South African veteran of World War II and his mother was British. Errol and his stepdaughter, Jana Bezuidenhout, share two children. [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. [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. SpaceX, his rocket company, is valued at $20 billion-plus. His brother Kimbal was with him when the two brothers sold two of the gems to Tiffany & Co. for $2,000, according to their father. Went to Queens Univ with scholarship & debt, then same to UPenn/Wharton & Stanford. He talks about the risk factors for Bitcoin as an investment asset including origin risk, speculative market structure, regulatory, and environment. Errol Musk bought 50% of the emerald mine in 1969 for about 40,000, which is equal to about 160 000 today. It was a lucrative decision. You could tell by the way that he told the story. With his new riches, Errol also bought half of an emerald mine. Business Insider South Africa, 28 Feb. 2018, https://www.businessinsider.co.za/how-elon-musks-family-came-to-own-an-emerald-mine-2018-2. 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 . 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. 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. FIVE THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT ERROL MUSK 1. 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/. Market Realist is a registered trademark. 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. Clearly, Elon Musk doesn't like being mocked. So we went to this guy's prefab and he opened his safe and there was just stacks of money and he paid me out, 80,000, it was a huge amount of money, he said. Errol was born in South Africa to a British mother and a South African father. Answer these 2 simple questions & WIN R1000 in cash! Worked on my Moms cousins farm in Saskatchewan & a lumber mill in Vancouver. 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. We contacted Elon publicly on Twitter. * The headline of this article was updated toreflect that the Musk family once owned the mine in question, and no longer do. Note: The reference to Zip2 concerned Elon's "first enterprise" in 1995. They never made it to their destination. He just had a rich dad and a got lucky. His mother Maye responded on Twitter in December 2019 in defense of Elon. "One thing led to another you can call it God's plan or nature's plan. Elon called the story "actually accurate." "Like every abused woman, I was embarrassed, and I knew I had made a mistake, you know? All the Musk siblings did well, Forbes reported. 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. 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. The 51-year-old has refuted claims that he grew up rich amid statements that his father Errol owned an emerald mine in South Africa. In times of uncertainty you need journalism you can trust. On Wednesday, Errol confirmed that he and Jana had welcomed a second child, a daughter who is now 3. "I Talked to Elon Musk about Journalism and the Blood Emeralds Story." 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. TheSouthAfrican.com is all about South Africa and the stories that affect South Africans, wherever they are in the world. Elon and Kimbal allegedly sold 2 emeralds: one worth $800 and another worth $1200. 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. 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. Born in 1971, Musk grew up in Pretoria, South Africa. 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. Bill Gates' mom helped Microsoft get a deal with IBM. Musk replied, linking to Jeremy Arnolds article, which gave Musks side of the story. "'His Family Stole an Emerald Mine.'" "Can Elon Musk Really Get Us To Mars Within 10 Years?" Almost every crime you can possibly think of, he has done," Elon said. At some point after the shooting, the relationship between dad Errol and son Elon soured. 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." Where is this bs coming from? He also sent a link to another interview he did with Elon in 2016. 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. Once again, he said that he paid his own way through college, ending with around $100,000 in student debt, and added thathe started his first company with no funding and one computer he built himself. This is why people are switching to @TheBabylonBee! Musk wrote. Elon has himself admitted that his father has a very high IQ and is brilliant at engineering.. The article was titled, "I Talked to Elon Musk about Journalism and the Blood Emeralds Story.". 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. 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. All About Errol Musk", "50 years of Elon Musk's huge wealth, from emeralds to SpaceX and Tesla", "How Elon Musk made his money - from emeralds to SpaceX and Tesla", "Elon Musk Left a South Africa That Was Rife With Misinformation and White Privilege", "At 68, Maye Musk, the Mother of Elon, Is Reclaiming the Spotlight", "El padre de Elon Musk dice que la ambicin de su hijo se debe a la educacin austera que recibi: "Fui un padre estricto", "BBC Two - The Elon Musk Show, Series 1, Episode 2", "Elon Musk's dad reveals he fathered an "unplanned" child with his stepdaughter", "Elon Musk's father has baby with step-daughter he has known since she was four", "Elon Musk's father confirms second child with his own stepdaughter - report", "Errol Musk explains why he got his stepdaughter pregnant", "Ayah Elon Musk Punya Bayi dari Hubungan dengan Putri Tirinya", "Meet Elon Musk's controversial father, Errol", "Errol Musk hat Kind mit Stieftochter: "Wir sind zum Fortpflanzen auf der Welt", "Elon Musk's Dad Says Company Wants His Sperm to Impregnate 'High-Class' Women", Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors, Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet of the Century, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Errol_Musk&oldid=1142497006, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 2 March 2023, at 18:50.