Elon Musk's family consists of several notable individuals, among them his mother Maye Musk, a model and author, his father Errol Musk, a businessman and politician, his siblings Kimbal Musk and Tosca Musk, and his cousin Lyndon Rive. His ex-wives are Justine Musk and Tallauh Riley.
Maye Musk ( née Haldeman; born April 19, 1948) [1] is a model, dietitian and author. [2] [3] She has been a model for 50 years, appearing on the covers of magazines, including a Time magazine health edition, Women's Day, international editions of Vogue, and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. She is the mother of Elon Musk, Kimbal Musk and Tosca Musk. [4] She holds Canadian, South African, and American citizenship. She is a registered dietitian.
Kimbal James Musk (born 20 September 1972) is a South African restaurateur, chef, and entrepreneur. He owns The Kitchen Restaurant Group, a collection of restaurants located in Colorado and Chicago. [5] He is the co-founder and chairman of Big Green, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has built hundreds of outdoor classrooms called Learning Gardens in schoolyards across America. [6] [7] [8] Musk is also the co-founder and chairman of Square Roots, an urban farming company growing food in hydroponic, indoor, climate controlled shipping containers. [9] [10] [11] Musk currently sits on the boards of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, both of which his brother Elon is the current CEO. [12] He was on the board of Chipotle Mexican Grill [13] from 2013 to 2019. [14] He is the brother of Tosca Musk, son of Errol and Maye Musk, and a major shareholder in Tesla. [15]
In 1995 he co-founded, with his brother, Elon Musk, the software company Zip2, which was acquired by Compaq for $307 million in 1999.
Tosca Musk (born 20 July 1974) is a South African filmmaker. She is an executive producer and director of feature films, television programs, and web content. Her work includes K. Bromberg's Driven, Rachel van Dyken's Matchmaker's Playbook, and her web series, Tiki Bar TV . [16] [17] Tosca is the younger sister of Elon Musk and Kimbal Musk, and daughter of Errol Musk and Maye Musk. [18] She co-founded the streaming service Passionflix.
Errol Musk | |
---|---|
Born | 1946 |
Occupation(s) | Engineer, politician, businessman |
Office | Pretoria city councilman |
Term | 1972-1983 |
Political party | Progressive Federal Party (resigned 1983) |
Spouse(s) | Sue Musk (divorced)Heide Bezuidenhout (m. 1992;div. 2004) |
Partner | Jana Bezuidenhout |
Children | 7 Three with Maye: Elon, Kimbal, Tosca; Two with Heidi, Two with Jana |
Parents |
|
Errol Musk is a retired South African engineer, politician, and businessman. Beginning in the 2010s, Musk was featured in media documenting his relationships with family including his wives, children, and former stepdaughter.
Errol Musk was born in South Africa. [19] His mother, Cora Amelia, was British and his father Walter Henry James Musk was a South African army sergeant. [19] [20]
He attended Clapham High School, where he dated Maye Haldeman. [21] The pair married in 1970. [22] : 44 The family lived in Pretoria, where Maye worked as a dietician and a model. [21] Their first child, Elon Reeve Musk, was born in 1971, named after his wife's grandfather J. Elon Haldeman with Reeve from her maternal grandmother's maiden name. [21] [19]
On 9 March 1972, Musk was elected as an independent to represent Sunnyside on the Pretoria City Council. [23] [22] : 52 [24] [25]
He became a member of the recently-formed Progressive Federal Party and ran as their nominee in the 1981 election. [22] : 52 [26] : 225, fn 119 In 1983, his resignation from the party amid divisions over a constitutional referendum was front page news. [26] : 225, fn 119 [27]
Musk studied electromechanical engineering at the University of Pretoria, worked as an electrical and mechanical engineering consultant and developed properties. [19] He specialised in retail and office property development. [20] : 27 Musk owned "one of the biggest houses in Pretoria" thanks to his lucrative engineering business which took on "large projects such as office buildings, retail complexes, residential subdivisions, and an air force base." [20] Musk also owned an auto parts store. [28] In 1979, Musk and wife Maye divorced. [21] [29] Maye's book recalls that at the time of the divorce, he owned two homes, a yacht, a plane, five luxury cars, and a truck. [30]
Maye recounts a time during their divorce when she sought refuge at a neighbor's home after Errol showed up with a knife looking for her. [30] After the divorce, Musk repeatedly sued his ex-wife for custody of their children. [30] Musk was briefly married to a wife, Sue. [30]
In the early 1980s, Musk built a lodge in the Timbavati Game Reserve to rent to tourists. [25] : ch. 3 In 1986, Musk acquired the output of three Zambian emerald mines, though he could not acquire the actual mines themselves. In interviews with Walter Issacson, Musk explained: "If you registered it, you would wind up with nothing, because the Blacks would take everything from you". [25] : ch. 1
In the 21st century, the former South African politician achieved notoriety for his relationships to ex-wife supermodel Maye Musk, his sons including businessman Elon Musk and restaurateur Kimbal Musk, his daughter filmmaker Tosca Musk, and his step-daughter turned partner Jana Bezuidenhout.
In 2014, Musk gave an interview to American media about his son Elon. [31] In 2017, Musk was interviewed by Neil Strauss of Rolling Stone for a profile of Elon titled "The Architect of Tomorrow". [32] In that piece Errol recalled that he had once shot and killed in self-defense "three out of five or six armed people" who had broken into his home. [32] [33] Elon described his father Errol as a "terrible human being", adding: "Almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done." [32]
In March 2018, it was reported that Musk had fathered a child with his adult stepdaughter. In the early 1990s, Musk, then aged 45, had married Heide Bezuidenhout, a 25-year old he described as "one of the best looking women I’ve ever seen in my life". [34] They had two children. [35] His partner, Jana Bezuidenhout, had been his stepdaughter from that marriage and had been four years old at the time Musk married her mother and became her stepfather. [35] [36]
In February 2018, Musk made headlines when he referred to his wealth during Elon's teen years in an interview with Business Insider South Africa . Musk described having "so much money we couldn't even close our safe" and mentioned his emerald dealings. [37] [38] Snopes confirmed that Errol at some point owned "a stake in an emerald mine near Lake Tanganyika in Zambia". [39]
In 2019, Musk's ex-wife Maye published her memoir, A Woman Makes a Plan, a book in which she characterized her marriage as abusive and alleged Errol had been violent. [40] [30]
In July 2022, Musk gave an interview to the tabloid newspaper The Sun , announcing that he and Jana Bezuidenhout had had another child. [41] [42] Musk has a total of seven children, according to People magazine in November 2022. [37] On 1 August 2022, Musk appeared on The Kyle and Jackie O Show, an Australian radio show and made headlines for saying he was "not proud" of his son. [43]
In April 2023, Musk described his emerald mine as an "under the table" operation. [44] Musk was interviewed by author Walter Isaacson for his 2023 biography of Musk's son Elon, which discussed Errol Musk at length. [45] In June 2024, he gave an interview to The Sun tabloid in which he claimed Elon had upgraded his home security system. [46]
Elon Reeve Musk is a businessman and investor known for his key roles in the space company SpaceX and the automotive company Tesla, Inc. Other involvements include ownership of X Corp., the company that operates the social media platform X, and his role in the founding of The Boring Company, xAI, Neuralink, and OpenAI. He is one of the wealthiest individuals in the world; as of August 2024 Forbes estimates his net worth to be US$247 billion.
Tesla, Inc. is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, it designs, manufactures and sells battery electric vehicles (BEVs), stationary battery energy storage devices from home to grid-scale, solar panels and solar shingles, and related products and services.
Kimbal James Musk is a South African restaurateur, chef, and entrepreneur. He owns The Kitchen Restaurant Group, a collection of restaurants located in Colorado and Chicago. He is the co-founder and chairman of Big Green, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has built hundreds of outdoor classrooms called Learning Gardens in schoolyards across the United States. Musk is also the co-founder and chairman of Square Roots, an urban farming company growing food in hydroponic, indoor, climate controlled shipping containers. Musk currently sits on the boards of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX; his brother Elon is the current CEO of both companies. He was on the board of Chipotle Mexican Grill from 2013 to 2019. He is the brother of Tosca Musk, son of Errol and Maye Musk, and a major shareholder in Tesla.
Tosca Musk is a South African filmmaker. She is an executive producer and director of feature films, television programs, and web content. Her work includes K. Bromberg's Driven, Rachel van Dyken's Matchmaker's Playbook, and her web series, Tiki Bar TV. Tosca is the younger sister of Elon Musk and Kimbal Musk, and daughter of Errol Musk and Maye Musk. She co-founded the streaming service Passionflix.
Musk, also known as musk oil, is a class of aromatic substances commonly used as base notes in perfumery.
Zip2 Corp. was a company that provided and licensed online city guide software to newspapers. The company was founded in Palo Alto, California as Global Link Information Network, Inc. on November 9, 1995, by Greg Kouri and brothers Elon and Kimbal Musk. Initially, Global Link provided local businesses with an Internet presence, but later began to assist newspapers in designing online city guides before being purchased by Compaq Computer in 2000.
Maye Musk is a model and dietitian. She has been a model for 50 years, appearing on the covers of magazines, including a Time magazine health edition, Women's Day, international editions of Vogue, and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. She is the mother of Elon Musk, Kimbal Musk and Tosca Musk. She holds Canadian, South African, and American citizenship. She is a registered dietitian.
The Tesla Cybertruck is a battery electric pickup truck built by Tesla, Inc. since 2023. Introduced as a concept vehicle in November 2019, it has a body design reminiscent of low-polygon modelling, consisting of flat stainless steel sheet panels.
TSLAQ is a loose, international collective of largely anonymous short-sellers, skeptics, and researchers who openly criticize Tesla, Inc. and its CEO Elon Musk. The group primarily organizes on social media, often using the $TSLAQ cashtag, and on Reddit to coordinate efforts and share news, opinions, and analysis about the company and its stock. Edward Niedermeyer, in his book Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors (2019), pinpoints the July 2018 doxxing of Twitter user Lawrence Fossi, a Seeking Alpha writer and Tesla short seller operating under the pseudonym Montana Skeptic, as the catalyst for the formation of TSLAQ.
Gigafactory Texas is an automotive manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas built by Tesla, Inc. Construction began in July 2020, limited production of Model Y began before the end of 2021, and initial deliveries of vehicles built at the factory took place at an opening party called “Cyber Rodeo” on April 7, 2022.
Elon Musk is the CEO or owner of multiple companies including Tesla, SpaceX, and X Corp, and has expressed many views on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from politics to science.
Tesla, Inc. has been criticized for its cars, workplace culture, business practices, and occupational safety. Many of the criticisms are also directed toward Elon Musk, the company's CEO and Product Architect. Critics have also accused Tesla of deceptive marketing, unfulfilled promises, and fraud. The company is currently facing criminal and civil investigations into its self-driving claims. Critics have highlighted Tesla's downplaying of issues, and Tesla's alleged retaliation against several whistleblowers.
Lex Fridman is an American computer scientist and podcaster. Since 2018 he has hosted the Lex Fridman Podcast, where he interviews notable figures from various fields such as science, technology, sports, and politics.
Jack Sweeney is an American programmer and entrepreneur. In 2022, he became known for creating Twitter bots to track the private jets of Russian oligarchs and other prominent individuals, including Elon Musk through the ElonJet account, and Taylor Swift.
Business magnate Elon Musk initiated an acquisition of American social media company Twitter, Inc. on April 14, 2022, and concluded it on October 27, 2022. Musk had begun buying shares of the company in January 2022, becoming its largest shareholder by April with a 9.1 percent ownership stake. Twitter invited Musk to join its board of directors, an offer he initially accepted before declining. On April 14, Musk made an unsolicited offer to purchase the company, to which Twitter's board responded with a "poison pill" strategy to resist a hostile takeover before unanimously accepting Musk's buyout offer of $44 billion on April 25. Musk stated that he planned to introduce new features to the platform, make its algorithms open-source, combat spambot accounts, and promote free speech, framing the acquisition as the cornerstone of X, an "everything app".
Shivon Alice Zilis is a Canadian technology executive and venture capitalist.
Linette Lopez is an American journalist who focuses on U.S. politics and economics, and writes columns for Business Insider. As a senior finance editor, she has investigated companies involved with public-facing controversies, and is most widely known for her coverage of Tesla, Inc. A regular contributor to Marketplace produced by American Public Media, Lopez teaches as an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She has also been a frequent commentator on CNN, MSNBC, and Real Time with Bill Maher.
Elon Musk is an authorized biography of American business magnate and SpaceX/Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The book was written by Walter Isaacson, a former executive at CNN, TIME and the Aspen Institute who had previously written best-selling biographies of Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs and Leonardo da Vinci. The book was published on September 12, 2023, by Simon & Schuster.
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