We all know about Elon Musk –– the legendary tech genius billionaire, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, father to the questionably-named X AE A-XII, and once-boyfriend of Grimes.
In November 2021, Musk became the first person with a net worth of more than US$250,000 (approx. $330 billion). But his relationship with his estranged father, Errol Musk, proves that money can’t solve all your problems.
In the past, Elon has called his father “evil” and “a terrible human being”, saying, “Almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done.”
And this was before Errol confirmed he had a child with his stepdaughter, Jana Bezuidenhout, who he originally met when she was four.
Now Errol has given a wide-ranging interview on Aussie radio program The Kyle & Jackie O Show to discuss fatherhood and his billionaire son. Watch the clip above.
But what we really want to know is what happened between Elon and his father to get to this point of estrangement…
Growing up in South Africa
For the first eight years of his life, Elon Musk lived with his parents in Pretoria, South Africa, but he rarely saw either of them. Though the family had a housekeeper, the future billionaire says he was often left to his own devices.
“I was off making explosives and reading books and building rockets and doing things that could have gotten me killed,” he told Rolling Stone in 2017. “I’m shocked that I have all my fingers.”
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At age eight, when his parents divorced, Elon chose to live with his father, while his two brothers stayed with his mum –– a choice he later said was “not a good idea”.
His dad, Errol, was an engineer, and supposedly the youngest person to get a professional engineer’s qualification in South Africa. He worked in emerald mining and, at one point, they had so much money that he couldn’t close their safe. But money can’t buy happiness.
READ MORE: Elon Musk and Grimes’ complete relationship timeline
“He was such a terrible human being,” Musk told Rolling Stone. “My dad will have a carefully thought-out plan of evil. He will plan evil.”
“You have no idea about how bad. Almost every crime you can possibly think of, he has done. Almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done.”
Errol has defended himself against these claims from his son, saying he has never intentionally threatened or hurt anyone.
As Errol told Rolling Stone via email, “I love my children and would readily do whatever for them.”
When he was 17, Elon left South Africa for Canada to start a new life. His father told him that he’d be back in three months with his tail between his legs, calling him an “idiot”.
That idiot went on to found four billion-dollar companies.
After Elon came forward with these remarks about his father, Errol defended himself to the Daily Mail, saying that his son needs to grow up.
“He needs to get over himself. I’m not going to hit back,” he told the publication. “I’m going to wait until he comes to his senses. He’s having a tantrum, like a spoilt child. He can’t have what he wants and now I am apparently an evil monster.’
Errol says that he gave Elon and his siblings the best-possible childhood: “I drove them to school in a convertible Rolls-Royce Corniche, they had thoroughbred horses to ride and motorbikes at the age of 14. They were spoilt, I suppose. Maybe that’s why Elon is acting like a spoilt child now.”
Still, despite all of Elon’s achievements, Errol said on The Kyle & Jackie O Show that he is not particularly proud of his son.
“No I’m not [proud]. 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 told hosts Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson.
“They’ve seen a lot of things, and we’ve done a lot of things together,” Errol said, listing his clan’s travels to China, the Amazon rainforest and other places. “But Elon has in fact sort of really surpassed the mark.”
Becoming estranged
The final nail in the coffin of their relationship came in 2018 when Errol fathered another child. The child’s mother? His 30-year-old stepdaughter, who’s 40 years younger than him.
Jana Bezuidenhout is the daughter of Errol’s ex-wife Heide. He met Jana when she was just four years old. But he told The Sunday Times that it was “God’s plan” that led them to have a child together.
Though he was involved in Jana’s life when she was young, Errol didn’t see her much as she was growing up. But when she got in touch with him after splitting from her boyfriend, the pair reunited.
“We were lonely, lost people,” Errol told the publication. “One thing led to another – you can call it God’s plan or nature’s plan.”
Though Errol doesn’t live with Jana and their son Eliot Rush, he is helping to support them.
“Of course, I love him dearly, even though it wasn’t planned,” he told the Daily Mail. “In my own cautious way, I insisted on a DNA test to ensure he was mine.”
“I told my daughter Ali about him because I thought she would be supportive and understanding. She said I was insane, mentally ill. She told [Errol’s other kids, including Elon] and they went berserk. They think I’m getting senile and should go into an old age home, not have a life full of fun and a tiny baby.”
Elon reportedly hasn’t spoken to his father in years and based on the amount of family history, it doesn’t seem like they’re going to have a happy reunion any time soon.
A new baby controversy
In July 2022, Errol, now aged 76, revealed he welcomed a second child with his stepdaughter Jana Bezuidenhout in 2019.
In an interview with The Sun, Errol explained his new child’s birth “wasn’t planned” and that he impregnated Bezuidenhout during the 18 months they lived together following the birth of their son, Rushi, now aged five.
“The only thing we are on Earth for is to reproduce,” he told the publication.
In his interview on The Kyle & Jackie O Show on July 1, Errol called his former relationship with Bezuidenhout was nothing out of the ordinary.
He explained that he became her stepfather when she was four after he married her mother in the ’90s. They were only married for two years before divorcing.
Errol and Bezuidenhout then reconnected when she was 30 years old and he wanted to help her as she was struggling with an eight-year-old child at the time.
“So I said, ‘Let me help you’ and we became friends,” he recalled, adding that the way they became romantically linked was “completely normal”.
However, Errol has previously confirmed he is no longer living with his stepdaughter, with the reasoning being their 41-year age gap.
“It’s not practical. She’s 35,” he said in a previous interview. “Eventually if I’m still around, she might wind up back with me.”
“Any man who marries a [younger] woman, even if you feel very sprightly, it’s going to be nice for a while, but there’s a big gap,” he continued. “And that gap is going to show itself.”
Errol has seven children in total, while his 51-year-old Tesla Motors CEO son has fathered 10 children.
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