The Bizarre Truth Of Elon Musk's Family

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is one of the most polarizing figures of our time. A billionaire genius, an unpredictable entrepreneur, and more recently, a political wildcard, Musk unsurprisingly constantly dominates headlines. But, while the eccentric billionaire’s public persona often takes center stage, his family has also found itself sprung into the spotlight, sometimes for rather bizarre reasons. Take his father, Errol Musk, a successful businessman and an engineer, for example. In 2022, Errol made headlines after opening up about a dramatic shootout that led to the death of three burglars who broke into one of his rental apartments in the ’90s. “I killed three. One bullet went through two of them,” he claimed in an interview with The Sun. Though he was first charged with manslaughter, Errol was eventually acquitted, with authorities ruling that he acted in self-defense.

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Elon’s mother, Maye Musk, a former model turned dietician, has also been at the center of controversy. In November 2024, Maye shared a tweet criticizing tech reporter Ryan Mac over ahead of a “hit piece” he was set to publish about her son. “Sadly, Ryan is an American Vietnamese reporter. My book is a bestseller in Vietnam. I don’t think my readers will believe the article if it’s hateful and/or dishonest,” Maye added (via The Independent). Unsurprisingly, Maye’s comment sparked criticism, with many social media users deeming it racially insensitive. “No one should be singled out by their race like this. Completely unacceptable,” one user wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Between a father with a complicated past to a mother who is unafraid to stir the murky waters of controversy, the Musks are anything but ordinary. Here’s a closer look at the bizarre truths behind one of the most famous families in the world.

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In 1970, Errol Musk married Maye Musk, and together, they welcomed three children — Elon, Kimbal, and Tosca. The couple’s marriage was, however, short-lived, ending in divorce only nine years later. Errol has since opened up about the divorce, admitting that his infidelity played a significant role. “I was really terrible,” he told Business Insider South Africa. “I had … a few mistresses on the side, I didn’t quite see the problem. It seemed to be quite reasonable. Looking back, it was stupid.”

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Beyond his numerous affairs, Errol was also reportedly abusive toward Maye. In a 2019 interview with Harper’s Bazaar, the model opened up about the mistreatment she endured and how their abusive situation eventually became obvious to people around them. “Everybody I knew called him ‘the Pig’ because he treated me so badly in public,” she shared. “And I was too scared to tell anyone [about the deeper violence] … He told me over and over that I was stupid, ugly, boring.”

Maye also recalled how even after their divorce, Errol constantly questioned her parenting skills, often labeling her as an unfit guardian for their kids. In one instance, Errol suggested the kids were not getting enough nutrients after seeing a blister on Tosca’s mouth. “He saw a bruise on Kimbal’s arm — imagine, an active little boy with a bruise! — and said I was beating him,” she added.

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Following their parents’ divorce, Elon Musk and his siblings remained in their mother, Maye Musk’s, care. In his teenage years, however, Elon decided to move in with his father, Errol Musk, whom he believed to be “lonely” at the time. In hindsight, this wasn’t the best decision. “I didn’t really understand at the time what kind of person he was. It was not a good idea,” he told Rolling Stone in 2017. “He was such a terrible human being. You have no idea.”

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Over the years, the Tesla CEO has spoken openly about his complex relationship with Errol. In his authorized eponymous biography, “Elon Musk” by Walter Isaacson, Elon looked back on an incident from his childhood when he was beaten by bullies in school. Despite getting hospitalized with a swollen face, Errol reportedly showed little sympathy to his son. “I had to stand for an hour as he yelled at me and called me an idiot and told me that I was just worthless,” Elon Musk recalled of his father’s reaction to the incident.

While Elon has said he moved in with his father out of concern for him, Maye Musk believes there were some external influences. In her interview with Harper’s Bazaar, the model claimed that Elon’s paternal grandmother manipulated him into making the move. “She said, ‘Oh, your mother has all of you kids. Your father’s so hurt because he’s all alone. Do you want him to be alone and sad?’ It was an awful trick,” Maye claimed.

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After his divorce from Maye Musk, Errol Musk soon found love in Heide Bezuidenhout, whom he married in 1992. Heide, who was 20 years younger than Errol, had a daughter, Jana Bezuidenhout, from a previous relationship, who was only 4 years old at the time. Over the course of their 18-year marriage, the couple expanded their family, welcoming two children together before divorcing.

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In 2017, however, their marriage made headlines when news broke that Errol had fathered a child with his former stepdaughter, Jana. “I got my 30-year-old girlfriend Jana pregnant and we had a baby, who is now 10 months old,” he confirmed to The Daily Mail. In a 2018 interview with The Sunday Times, Errol opened up about his romantic relationship with Jana, which allegedly started after reconnecting the previous year. “We were lonely, lost people. One thing led to another — you can call it God’s plan or nature’s plan,” he explained.

The controversy surrounding the pair’s relationship deepened in 2022 when Errol confirmed that he had welcomed a second child with Jana back in 2019. Despite the widespread backlash, however, Errol has defended his relationship with Jana, insisting to The Sunday Times that he had never viewed her as his stepdaughter. “Jana is a delightful girl and a wonderful mother. She said I had changed her life,” he added.

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Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, Maye Musk did not hold back from sharing her controversial opinions. In October 2024, Elon Musk, a vocal supporter of Donald Trump, took to social media, urging intending voters to register. “Super important to get all your friends and family to register to vote,” he tweeted. Maye, however, responded to the tweet with a jab at Democrats. “The Democrats have given us another option. You don’t have to register to vote,” she wrote in a since-deleted post (via NBC News). “On Election Day, have 10 fake names, go to 10 polling booths and vote 10 times. That’s 100 votes, and it’s not illegal. Maybe we should work the system too.”

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Though she initially claimed the tweet was sarcastic, Maye later clarified her stance, suggesting that Republicans would be working to prevent voter fraud. “In Butler, Pennsylvania, we just heard that the Republicans will make sure no illegals vote. Ignore my previous post,” she wrote. Maye’s attempt to walk back her comment was, however, not well-received, with fans taking to social media to criticize her. “Sorry Maye. Too late. The damage is done,” one user wrote.

Elon Musk — with 13 children from four different mothers – sure has his hands full. So much so that the Tesla CEO seems to have developed an increasingly strained relationship with the mothers of his children. In a 2010 essay for Marie Claire, Justine Wilson, Elon’s first wife, confirmed that she was estranged from the tech billionaire with whom she shares six children. “I’ve worked through some anger, both at Elon for rendering me so disposable, and at myself for buying into a fairy tale when I should have known better,” Wilson wrote.

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Similarly, Elon’s relationship with Grimes, his ex-girlfriend and mother of three of his children, has taken a turn for the worse. Notably, Elon and Grimes were embroiled in a messy child custody battle lasting from September 2023 to November 2024. Though it is unclear how the former couple settled the case, there are hints suggesting that all is not well between them. For instance, in February 2025, Grimes took to social media, accusing Elon of neglecting their child’s medical needs. “Plz respond about our child’s medical crisis. I am sorry to do this publicly, but it is no longer acceptable to ignore this situation,” she wrote in a since-deleted tweet (via The Hollywood Reporter).

In February 2025, conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair, who claimed to have welcomed Elon’s 13th child, also sued the Tesla CEO for sole custody. In her petition, St. Clair noted that Elon was not involved in their child’s life and had only seen him a few times.

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Over the years, Elon Musk has publicly voiced his concerns about the declining global birth rate and the potential consequences for the human race. Beyond encouraging people to have more kids, the Tesla CEO, who has fathered over a dozen children so far, has chosen to lead by example. “Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis,” he quipped in a July 2022 tweet.

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The tech billionaire is, however, not just having kids; he has an approach to it — procreating with women he considers intelligent. In “Elon Musk,” his eponymous biography by Walter Isaacson, Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis — with whom Elon welcomed a set of twins in 2021 as well as two more children in 2024 and 2025 — revealed that the tech mogul only wants certain types of people to have more kids. “He really wants smart people to have kids, so he encouraged me to do this … I can’t possibly think of genes I would prefer for my children,” she said in the book.

Elon’s views align with the controversial concept of eugenics, which champions selective reproduction based on perceived genetic superiority. Unsurprisingly, the Space X founder has reportedly always lamented bout the declining birth rate amongst intelligent people. “If each successive generation of smart people has fewer kids, that’s probably bad,” he reportedly told biographer Ashlee Vance (via Jacobin). Many, including his transgender daughter, Vivian, have also accused Elon of using his money and influence to breed male children through IVF. “So when I was feminine as a child and then turned out to be transgender, I was going against the product that was sold,” Vivian wrote in a post shared on Threads.

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In January 2025, Elon Musk sparked controversy after making a one-armed gesture at a celebratory rally for Donald Trump’s inauguration. Social media fans quickly interpreted the gesture to be the infamous Nazi salute, accusing Musk of promoting fascism. “Yes, Elon Musk did a sieg heil aka the Nazi salute, and yes, that makes him a Nazi,” one user wrote on X. Another added: “This is a deliberate Nazi salute. Musk did this twice. If you are not worried about this, you have not been paying any attention.” Elon, however, responded to the backlash, dismissing the allegations and labeling the fascism narrative as “dirty tricks” used by Democrats. “The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired,” he tweeted.

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Errol Musk also described the allegations as “nonsense,” noting that several politicians had made similar gestures in the past. In an interview with Al Arabiya, Errol attributed Elon’s gesture to an age-old tradition. “It was an international salute that we have had for maybe the last 10,000 years or more perhaps,” he explained in the interview. “It simply meant my right hand is empty. I do not carry a weapon.”

Elon Musk has openly spoken about his father, but Errol Musk apparently also has a lot to say about his son’s approach to fatherhood. During an appearance on the “Wide Awake” podcast, Errol criticized his son for not spending enough time with his children and relying too much on people. “He hasn’t been a good dad … They were too rich … too many nannies,” he claimed. “Then he had five children with the same woman — five sons, each one had its own nanny.”

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Errol also commented on the tragic passing of Elon’s first child, Nevada Musk, in 2002. Though Nevada passed away from sudden infant death syndrome, Errol attributed his passing to Elon’s absence. “The first child was too much with nannies and died in the care of a nanny,” he accused. Despite his criticisms of Elon’s parenting, however, Errol spoke fondly of his grandchildren, describing them as “smart and very pleasant.”

Beyond his parenting skills, Errol is also seemingly critical of Elon career, noting in 2022 that he wasn’t proud of all of Elon’s many accomplishments and strides when asked. “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,” he shared on “The Kyle and Jackie O Show” (via New York Post).

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During his marriage to his first wife, Justine Wilson, Elon Musk welcomed six children, including his daughter Vivian. Assigned male at birth, Vivian came out as transgender in 2022, legally requesting to have her last name changed to her mother’s. In addition to the name change, Vivian also stated in her court filing that she wanted to cut ties with her famous father. “I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form,” she wrote in the petition (via AP).

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In a 2024 interview with Jordan Peterson, Elon commented on Vivian’s identity as transgender and claimed to have been misled into approving gender affirming procedures for her. “I was essentially tricked into signing documents for one of my older boys … This was before I had really any understanding of what was going on, and we had COVID going on, so there was a lot of confusion, and I was told [Musk’s child] might commit suicide,” he shared. The tech billionaire has also declared Vivian dead multiple times, tweeting in March 2025 that “he was killed by the woke virus.”

Vivian, has, however, also since pushed back against Elon, whom she described as a cruel, absent parent who became controlling when he was around. “He was cold. He’s very quick to anger. He is uncaring and narcissistic,” she shared in an interview with NBC News.

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For several years, the Musk family — who hails from South Africa — was plagued with rumors that Errol Musk owned emerald mines during South Africa’s Apartheid era, which lasted from 1948 to 1994. Despite initially telling Ask Men that Errol “had a share in an emerald mine in Zambia,” Elon Musk later denied the claims, taking to social media to refute rumors of his father’s mine ownership. “He didn’t own an emerald mine, & I worked my way through college, ending up ~$100k in student debt. I couldn’t even afford a 2nd PC at Zip2, so programmed at night & website only worked during day,” he tweeted back in 2019.

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But in a 2020 Facebook post, Errol confirmed that he had indeed owned an emerald mine in Zambia back in the ’80s. He, however, clarified that his involvement in the business lasted only a few years before Russia began producing emeralds in labs in 1989, which affected many mines across the world. In a later interview, Errol detailed how he came to own the emerald mine after a group of Italians offered shares in an emerald mine as part of the payment for his small private plane. “They promptly presented me with 118, 119 cut emeralds, as I recall, and said you can have these to deposit,” he shared during a 2024 appearance on “Podcast and Chill with MacG.”

While the mine was located outside South Africa, it is hard to ignore that for many years, the Apartheid system favored the minority white people like the Musk family, affording them the chance to build sustainable wealth and remain at the top of social hierarchy through the years.

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