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Errol Graham Musk (born 1946) is a South African retired electromechanical engineering consultant, former emerald mine co-owner, and former politician. He is the father of business magnate and billionaire Elon Musk, restaurateur Kimbal Musk, and filmmaker Tosca Musk. He was married to Maye Musk.

In 1972, Musk was elected to Pretoria City Council, later resigning from the Progressive Federal Party in 1983.

Early life and education

Errol Graham Musk was born in 1946 in Pretoria to father Walter Henry James Musk and mother Cora Amelia Musk (née Robinson). His parents also gave birth to Errol's brother, Michael James. His father was a sergeant in the South African Army who served in World War II. His mother was born in England.

Musk attended Clapham High School, the University of the Witwatersrand, and the University of Pretoria, where he studied electromechanical engineering.

Business career

Musk primarily worked as an electromechanical engineering consultant. He specialised in retail and office property development, and worked for Hyperama. He holds South African patent number 0669 of 1996 for "Process and equipment to repair constant velocity joints." Successful in his engineering, he retired early.

Musk part-owned an emerald mine on Lake Tanganyika in Zambia that he said he bought for £40,000, that he said he funded by selling an airplane for £80,000. In a 2018 interview with Business Insider, Musk stated that as a result of the emerald mine "we had so much money we couldn't even close our safe." He told journalist and author Michael Vilsmas that he co-owned the mine for around five years, until 1989 when Russia started producing synthetic emeralds, crashing global prices. In November 2022, Snopes responded to rumours related to the mine and Elon Musk, stating: "We located reporting from as far back as 2009 and 2014 that said 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. Beyond that, we were unable to find any evidence that showed money generated from his father's involvement in the mine helped Elon build his wealth in North America."

Political career

In 1972, Musk was elected to the Pretoria City Council to represent Sunnyside, Pretoria.

He was a member of the Progressive Federal Party (PFP) and ran as the PFP candidate in the 1981 election to represent Sunnyside. He resigned from the party in 1983, which was reported on the front page of Die Burger, a newspaper that sought to highlight divisions within the PFP. At the time, Die Burger served as a "mouthpiece" of pro-apartheid National Party, according to Nieman Reports.

Family life

Musk met Maye Haldeman when she was about 11 years old and they remained childhood friends and dated as young adults during their time at university. After a period of being separated, Musk proposed to marry Haldeman. She initially rejected, but later agreed, with the couple marrying in 1970.

They had 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. The family lived in Pretoria, where Maye worked as a dietician and a model until Errol and Maye's divorce in 1979. Their three children initially stayed with Maye, and Elon and Kimbal later moved in with their father.

Although both The Telegraph and Cosmopolitan reported in 2022 that Musk was married to Heide Bezuidenhout for eighteen years, he said on Australian radio show The Kyle and Jackie O Show that the marriage only lasted two years. During the relationship, Musk fathered two children with Bezuidenhout and helped her raise Jana Bezuidenhout, her young daughter from a previous relationship. At the start of their marriage, Jana was four years old and lived with the couple.

Later in life, after splitting from Heide Bezuidenhout, Musk fathered two children with Jana (then his former stepdaughter); a son born in 2017 and a daughter born in 2019. Musk described the first child as unplanned. At the time of their daughter's birth Musk was 72 and Jana Bezuidenhout was 30 years old. As of 2022, Musk and Jana Bezuidenhout were no longer living together.

Musk has a total of seven children and as of 2022, he is estranged from his son Elon. As of May 2023, he lives in Langebaan.

In 1995, Musk gave $28,000 to Elon and Kimbal as they was starting up the software company Zip2.

Personal life

He has been both a keen a pilot and sailor.

See also

• Internal resistance to apartheid
• Musk family
• Mining in Zambia
• Politics of South Africa

References

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2. ^ Vance, Ashlee (2017). Elon Musk (in Portuguese). Eyrolles. p. 40. ISBN 9782212594379.
3. ^ "Who exactly is Errol Musk - Elon Musk's father? His net worth, wife and children". Naija News. 15 April 2022. Retrieved 7 September 2023.
4. ^ Hull, Dana; May, Patrick (20 April 2014). "Exploring the otherworldly ambitions of Elon Musk". Buffalo News. Archived from the original on 17 April 2022. Retrieved 15 July 2022.
5. Naidoo, Alicia (24 January 2023). "Who is Errol Musk? Five things to know about Elon's SA father". The South African. Archived from the original on 10 June 2023. Retrieved 6 September 2023.
6. ^ Vlismas, Michael (2022). Elon Musk: Risking it All. Jonathan Ball Publishers. ISBN 978-1776191857.
7. ^ Ashlee, Vance (2017). Elon Musk and the quest for a fantastic future. HarperCollins. ISBN 9780062463289.
8. "Elon Musk's University of Pretoria aptitude test showed extraordinary ability". MyBroadband. 3 March 2021.
9. Patent journal, including trade marks, designs, and copyright in cinematograph films. (March 1996). South Africa: Government Printer of South Africa. Volume 29, p149. Available from the New York Public Library
10. ^ Hull, Dana; May, Patrick (20 April 2014). "Exploring the otherworldly ambitions of Elon Musk". Buffalo News. Archived from the original on 17 April 2022. Retrieved 15 July 2022.
11. Redding, Anna Crowley (2 July 2019). Elon Musk: A Mission to Save the World. Feiwel & Friends. ISBN 978-1-250-31363-8. Retrieved 9 September 2023.
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14. Wet, Phillip de (23 February 2018). "'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". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 28 November 2022. Retrieved 28 November 2022.
15. Liles, Jordan (17 November 2022). "What We Know About Elon Musk and the Emerald Mine Rumor". Snopes. Archived from the original on 8 April 2023. Retrieved 21 March 2023.
16. Eligon, John; Chutel, Lynsey (5 May 2022). "Elon Musk Left a South Africa That Was Rife With Misinformation and White Privilege". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 11 November 2022. Retrieved 6 September 2023.
17. ^ Sussman, Gary (2003). The referendum in F.W. de Klerk's war of manoeuvre: An historical institutionalist account of the 1992 referendum (PDF) (PhD thesis). London School of Economics.
18. du Plessis, Tim (Winter 1998). "Newspaper Management Keeps Quiet About Its Role in Apartheid". Nieman Reports. Archived from the original on 8 September 2006.
19. ^ Kumar, Abhishek (1 January 2021). Elon Musk A Complete Biography. Prabhat Prakashan. ISBN 978-9355211347.
20. ^ Holson, Laura M. (30 April 2016). "At 68, Maye Musk, the Mother of Elon, Is Reclaiming the Spotlight". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 28 June 2020. Retrieved 15 July 2022.
21. Dolan, Kerry A. (2 July 2015). "How To Raise A Billionaire: An Interview With Elon Musk's Father, Errol Musk". Forbes. Archived from the original on 3 July 2015. Retrieved 22 February 2022.
22. Higgins, Tim (2021). Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet of the Century. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0385545457.
23. Friend, Tad (24 August 2009). "Plugged In". New Yorker. Vol. 85, no. 25. pp. 50–59.
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v t e Elon Musk
Main	Awards and honors Filmography Legal affairs Tornetta v. Musk, et al. Views Wealth
Companies	Zip2 X.com PayPal SpaceX (Starlink) Tesla, Inc. Tesla Energy criticism TSLAQ lawsuits OpenAI Neuralink The Boring Company Boring test tunnel SolarCity Thud X Corp. Twitter, Inc. Twitter Twitter under Elon Musk Acquisition of Twitter Twitter Files December 2022 suspensions Block in Brazil xAI
Depictions	Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future (2015) "The Musk Who Fell to Earth" (2015) The Space Barons (2018) Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors (2019) "One Crew over the Crewcoo's Morty" (2019) Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet of the Century (2021) Return to Space (2022) Elon Musk's Crash Course (2022) Elon Musk (2023)
People	Musk family Maye Musk (mother) Kimbal Musk (brother) Tosca Musk (sister) Joshua N. Haldeman (grandfather) Lyndon Rive (cousin) Justine Musk (first wife) Talulah Riley (second wife) Grimes (partner) Shivon Zilis (partner)
Related	America PAC Astra Nova School Billionaire space race Department of Government Efficiency Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster ElonJet Hyperloop RBG PAC Snailbrook, Texas Texas Institute of Technology and Science
Category

• Biography
• South Africa
• Business
• Politics
• Minerals

• Living people
• South African mining businesspeople
• South African engineers
• South African businesspeople
• South African people of British descent
• People from Pretoria
• Musk family
• 1946 births
• Elon Musk
• South African political people
• Politicians from Johannesburg
• Businesspeople from Johannesburg
• White South African anti-apartheid activists
• Politicians from the Western Cape
• Progressive Federal Party politicians
• University of Pretoria alumni
• University of the Witwatersrand alumni