Elon Musk’s dad held nothing back when asked by Australian radio talk show hosts to weigh in on his Tesla founder son’s life and career, revealing he was not proud of the billionaire businessman and favored his brother Kimbal.
Errol Musk, 76, on Monday called into Kyle and Jackie O’s show on the Australian radio station KIIS FM for a brutally honest 20-minute interview, in which he downplayed Elon’s success and took a swipe at his physical appearance — claiming that he even suggested the 50-year-old take diet pills after seeing his shirtless photos on a boat in Greece.
“Your offspring is a genius. He’s worth so much money and has created so many things, you can’t take that away from him. Are you proud?” presenter Jackie O asked the South African patriarch.
“No. You know, we are a family that have been doing a lot of things for a long time, it’s not as if we suddenly started doing something,” Errol replied.
Elon is Errol’s eldest son with his first wife, Maye Musk. The couple also shares daughter Tosca and son Kimbal, whom the dad described during the bizarre interview as his “pride and joy.”
Kimbal Musk, 49, is a chef and restaurateur who operates The Kitchen Restaurant Group in the US. His net worth is estimated to be about $700 million, compared to Elon’s $271.2 billion, which makes him the wealthiest person in the world.
Errol also has five other children by other partners, including his two youngest sons and a daughter who he’s welcomed in recent years with his 34-year-old stepdaughter, Jana Bezuidenhout.
When asked about that unusual relationship, the self-admitted “ladies’ man” insisted that it was “completely normal,” despite the 42-year age gap and Bezuidenhout’s being his stepchild.
Errol said during the interview that his son Elon feels as though he is running five years behind schedule in his career — and he said he agreed with that assessment.
“He is frustrated with progress and it’s understandable,” the father said. “I know it sounds crazy, but we tend to think like that as a family. He’s 50 now and I still think of him as a little boy. But he’s 50, I mean that’s an old man.”
Errol also said he is concerned that Elon, who has nine children with four different women but is currently single, won’t be able to find a partner who would be willing to give up her career to be with him all the time.
“I worry about him,” the dad said, adding of his firstborn: “He loves people, he loves humanity.”
The septuagenarian then took a swipe at his eldest child’s physical appearance when asked to weigh in on recent photos from Greece, which showed the Tesla and SpaceX founder relaxing topless on a luxury yacht in Mykonos.
“Elon is very strongly built but he’s been eating badly,” his dad opined, adding that he has touted to Elon the purported weight loss properties of a supplement called garcinia cambogia.
When asked by the talk show hosts if he drove a Tesla, Errol admitted that his stable of luxury vehicles did not include one of his son’s popular electric cars, revealing he instead owns a Bentley, Rolls Royce and Mercedes.
Errol Musk said that despite his son being the world’s richest man, Elon does not give him handouts freely.
“We are a very frugal, stingy family,” the wealthy South African engineer stressed. “If I want to spend anything I have to answer 100 questions of why.”
