Annotated transcript of interview with Errol Musk by MacG

A transcript, with explanatory notes, of an interview with Elon Musk’s father, Errol Musk by MacG of Podcast and Chill.

Screenshot from Podcast and Chill interview with Errol Musk.

You can find my commentary on the interview and selected excerpts from this transcript at RhymingChaos.com. The original interview by MacG is here. It was recorded on November 4, 2024, and uploaded to Youtube on November 14.

The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity. I’ve deleted some repetitions and verbal tics, but tried to leave in enough of Errol Musk’s verbal idiosyncrasies to give a sense of the way he talks, and also zapped words of encouragement or agreement or amazement from the host

If you don’t watch the video, you should know that the host’s manner is a little like Joe Rogan: he never contradicts his guest and generally is encouraging and even sycophantic. This has the effect on Errol Musk of letting him relax, and speak his mind.

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MacG (04:14):

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the biggest podcast in Africa. And today we have a special guest in the building. Make some noise for Elon Musk's dad. Mr. Errol Musk.

I'm sure the last time you had so many black people in your house were trying to rob you, hey?

Errol Musk (04:33):

No. No, no, no. I got lots of black friends.

I had Matthews Phosa [a senior member of the ANC party] here the other day. Yeah. And his crowd. Dr. Chalky [not clear who this refers to] was here. He's a PA for [South African President] Mr. Ramaphosa. And I bought Mr. Ramaphosa’s Bentley, which is in the garage.

MacG (04:51):

Oh, is that his Bentley.

Errol Musk (04:52):

Yeah.

MacG (04:53):

Oh wow. Yeah. Looks a bit knocked up though. You're trying to fix it, or?

Errol Musk (04:56):

No, no, no, there's nothing wrong with it. It's perfect. I've never seen, never found a car so well looked after as that car, you know? Yeah. So, ja, I bought it.

MacG (05:05):

You've been well traveled. You've traveled all over the world. Yeah. Why did you choose to stay here? Because this is like a small town. It's very far from Cape Town, you know?

Errol Musk (05:14):

Well, you know I'm from South Africa. To me, you know, South Africa is probably one of the better places to be in the world. Yeah. I mean everything is here. You know, you, you, you don't miss anything here, you know? So if you want anything, you, anything you want, you can get it in South Africa, you know?

And apart from that, I spent quite a few years sailing, sailing on the oceans. So then I had a daughter who I had custody of, who was 12. She was at school in America, in Colorado where she stayed with her brother, my son, you know? Yeah. And he put her into school there, and then she wanted to be near her mother during her high school years. So, her mother lives in the next town along the coast. So I came back, found this area, which had a nice school, and then I put her in school and it went very well.

But she's finished school now. But I stayed on here, and I, I go away quite a lot. But quite frankly, I don't find a place where you get better food, better people. I just don't find it so…

MacG (06:21):

Anywhere in the world. It's crazy. Right?

Errol Musk (06:24):

I mean, you know, the United States is a workaholics paradise, you know…

MacG (06:28):

Yeah.

Errol Musk (06:30):

So if you go to America…

MacG (06:31):

The food's not that great, eh, eh, the food's not that great.

Errol Musk (06:34):

Oh, the food's okay. But it's not as good as here.

MacG (06:36):

Yeah.

Errol Musk (06:36):

Yeah. You know, if you want to have bad food, you go to England. But no, no. America's actually [got] quite good food, you know? But it's expensive. But here it's even better. And you know everything I want is here. And if I want to go overseas these days, you know, I can leave today and I can be in Texas tomorrow.

MacG (06:57):

Wow.

Errol Musk (06:58):

You know? 'Cause It's so quick.

MacG (07:00):

Yeah. Yeah.

Errol Musk (07:01):

We have direct flights to the United States now, you know? So, quite frankly, I think I'm very lucky to be here.

MacG (07:10):

And your mom is from Liverpool, right?

Errol Musk (07:13):

She was born in Liverpool.

MacG (07:13):

She was born in Liverpool, right? And your dad was born in Pretoria. So how was it like, 'cause you grew up during apartheid, yeah? How was that like?

Errol Musk (07:23):

Well, you know, we were never supporters of apartheid. I mean anybody with half a brain is not a supporter of apartheid. So you know, we sort of had to live under it. You know, we were English-speaking South Africans. We had no choice, you know, and you couldn't really open your mouth about anything.

But boys, Elon and Kimbal, you know, they were very active, especially Kimbal. You know, he had lots of, in fact, when he went to school, you know most, if you want to talk race like that, I mean, most of his, a lot of his friends were black guys. So, you know, they would come and stay with us. And a lot of them went. It's quite funny, really, because a lot of them grew up like that. And then they would speak in a very South African way, you know, like, like South African white boys, you know, they would talk “Hello, how are you? You know…”

MacG (08:16):

Yeah. Yeah. You know, some Zulu, by the way? You know, some Zulu, like, you can speak Zulu?

Errol Musk (08:22):

Oh, no, no. I used to, of course, I had a house in Natal. So you learn a little bit. Yeah. You know, a little bit. But it takes time. I mean, you forget about it afterwards, you know? Yeah. But I used to, a lot of the guys that were working when I had a place in Natal, actually don't speak much. They would speak Zulu first, you know? Yeah. So you learn a little bit of that.

MacG (08:40):

And, and your dad, your dad was part of the army, if I'm not mistaken?

Errol Musk (08:43):

Yes. My dad was. So he served.

MacG (08:45):

In World War II?

Errol Musk (08:46):

Yes.. My dad was a smart young boy. He was taken into the military in 1939. He was quite a smart guy. He went into crypto, cryptography, you know, the stuff that spies do you know, crypto analysts? You know, he was with intelligence, military intelligence for six years, and he went all the way to Germany from South Africa, all the way up Africa into Germany.

But he came back a bit of a wrecked man, you know, he was not happy when he came back. And he lost some of his friends. Some of his friends were caught and executed. I was told only later on in life, I was told why he was such a wreck, you know? 'Cause he couldn't stop shaking, you know? If you wanted to know if he was coming, those days, today we only use cards, and then sometimes paper money, but in those days, everything we bought was [using] coins, you know? Because coins bought so much, you know. So everybody had coins in their pockets. So, if you wanted to know if my father was coming, you just listened, because he got his hands in his pocket to try to stop himself shaking. And then his coins were rattling, tchook, tchook tchook…

MacG (09:54):

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Was he, was he a racist though, would you say though?

Errol Musk (10:02):

What? Was he a racist? No, no, no. My dad was totally opposed to the National Party [the party that governed apartheid South Africa]. He was complete, crazy opposed to the Nationalist party. And as a result, he got himself into a lot of trouble with them. But no, no, he was a very quiet man after the war. You know, he was very quiet. And you know, after the war, when people came back from the war, if you were an English-speaking South African as he was, and although his mother was Dutch or Dutch-Huguenot, you didn't get jobs. They kept the English speaking guys out of jobs, you know.

So my dad suffered, you know, he couldn't get a job, so he carried on with the army. But it was a good thing there, because they gave him medical aid and everything. But my father was a total wreck. Yeah. So, let's get real. He was a total wreck. He could barely, you know, he was barely existed after the war. He was such a wreck.

MacG (11:04):

You can imagine. I'm sure you're seeing like, dead bodies, people coming back, arms…

Errol Musk (11:08):

Oh, yeah. My mom told me, he didn't talk to me much, but my mom told me his best friend was shot dead, sitting right next to him.

MacG (11:17):

Imagine! Geez. No, you can't come back from that.

Errol Musk (11:22):

Well, you know, there, there are a lot of things that he must have seen because he was there for six years, you know?

MacG (11:29):

So, how do you guys end up in Hillbrow? ‘Cause I believe you grew up in Hillbrow. [Hillbrow is an inner city commercial and residential neighbourhood of Johannesburg that is today famous for violent crime.]

Errol Musk (11:33):

Well, you know, after the war my mom came out from England as a refugee. She came out on a ship, as a refugee from England during the war, ducking, you know, the U-boats. And so they came as refugees. And the places where refugees went was to Hillbrow, which was a very nice place in those days. It was very nice.

MacG (12:01):

Have you seen it now? Hillbrow?

Errol Musk (12:02):

I haven't been to Hillbrow for quite a long time, but it's a bit overpopulated now, I think.

MacG (12:10):

It's a mess. Eh, it's a mess. I don't think you'd recognize it if you went there.

Errol Musk (12:13):

Well, you know, Hillbrow was, was always a gangland, even when I was there as a boy, you know, it was a bit of a, you know, a strange place. But it was a good place to learn, you know? You learned a lot of things in Hillbrow.

MacG (12:27):

Yeah.

Errol Musk (12:28):

And oh, we lived in two rooms in a boarding house as a kid. I never even had a bedroom. I mean, I never even had a bed. I didn't have a bedroom or a bed. My mom and dad had two rooms. One was a lounge, and the other was their room. And during the night, I slept on the couch. Until I was about 10 years old.

MacG (12:45):

How did you end up in the army? 'Cause You were in the army for 11 years?

Errol Musk (12:48):

Yeah. I was in the military, the South African military for 11 years. Because they had the civil army, the Burgermag, you know, civil army, you know, the civilian army. And so you, it's part-time. And you do a, a period of a year or so part-time. And then you, after that, you go into the army full time. And, and, and some people try to get out, but I was an officer, so I just carried on, you know? Yeah. And I enjoyed the army way. It was nice. It was, I liked the camps, and I liked the camaraderie and, and all that sort of stuff. It had nothing to do with hurting anybody. It was more that I was quite involved. I was a prosecutor for the army for a long time, for prosecuting boys who tried to get out of the army…

And yeah. You know, I was a kid. I mean, I left the Army in about 1975, you know, I signed myself out because I was…

MacG (13:50):

So you prosecuted yourself?

Errol Musk (13:51):

I never prosecuted myself. I signed myself out. I was an officer in command of a unit called 19 Electronic Warfare. Yeah. And so I signed myself out, you know? Yeah. But I did, I was active. I won the South African Defense Force shooting championships in 1968, over a period of week, you know, from handguns to cannons. So I won that. So I was quite good at shooting.

MacG (14:16):

Did you ever shoot anyone? Pardon? Did you ever shoot anyone while you were in the Army?

Errol Musk (14:20):

No. No. No. We never had active, we had patrolling duties, a lot of patrolling duties. We never had any active involvement with anything because it only started to become very active after I left.

But you know, I liked the training. I liked the basic training. And I think it's wrong that people aren't having to go into the army, young men, you know, because it's very good for you, you know? Very good. To learn discipline and, and you know, and all that sort of thing.

MacG (14:56):

I read once that you said that life was better under apartheid than it is now. Is that true?

Errol Musk (15:02):

No. No. I've never said life was better. I have said that, in my opinion now, with no apartheid, first of all, South Africa's at a better place now than it's ever been. So, let's get real. Oh, yes. Of course. Nobody would want to go back. But what I have noticed is that in the times, and here, I'm an engineer, so please understand. I'm not a you know, I'm an engineer. Yeah. I think, like, practically, in the times gone by the let's say the government, white government yeah, provided schools, hospitals, and everything they could for black people. And we all felt responsible for, for, well, I did anyway, for, for helping black people. You know what I mean?

But after that, now it's not like that anymore. So now, today, everybody's for himself. If you, if you understand…

MacG (16:02):

OK, yes, yes.

Errol Musk (16:02):

So I was a designer of things like hospitals. So when I went to, like, hospitals that I've worked on in the past, I had a couple of black guys once in a hospital that they worked for me. And they were in a hospital in Johannesburg. And then I went to the hospital. I couldn't believe the deterioration of the hospital. It looked terrible, you know, just in a terrible state. It never used to look like that, you know, and things like that worried me.

And then also, when I was in the times of, let's say you know, call it apartheid, I was a member of Rotary, and then on one occasion, I went to see different schools that black, 'cause Rotary helps people, you see, so I went to various schools that for black people to look and see, you know, to see what they need. And then they, I saw they need a lot of things. And then I started an essay competition where they have to write an essay. I forget what the subjects were, but it would be a good subject, you know? And the first, and then we had an idea that the first, the first three best ones will get a prize. It was actually, that's how we started. You see? But then the essay started to come in from about, the schools went all the way from, it was more or less like the northern Transvaal [the no-longer existent province around Johannesburg], OK at that time, so it went all the way into the Waterberg and all into Rustenburg and Pretoria and everything. So we had like 50 schools, actually 54 schools sending us essays. So the pile of essays, if you put all on top of one another, was about four feet high.

Each one was an essay, a couple of pages. So I didn't know what to do with that. So we took it to the University of South Africa, and we asked the department of English to mark these essays for us. So they marked the best three essays out of every school. So then I said, what about the rest? They said, look, these essays are really good. So then I went back to Rotary and I said, look, we can't do this. We have to give a prize to every single class. One, two, and three. First, second, and third. Every single class. Every single school. So you can imagine how much that cost. Yeah. Anyway, it cost a lot of money, but everybody agreed. So we gave prizes to the best three essays in every class, in every school.

MacG (18:33):

And what do you think about the GNU [South Africa’s current Government of National Unity], what's your take on it?

Errol Musk (18:35):

What used to amaze me when we gave the prizes, sometimes I would go, other people would go, but we'd go to the schools, and then the children, the black children would sing. You know? There'd be a big, the whole school would come together. And sometimes they didn't have a hall. I remember this one school didn't have a hall, but it had a, like, a big roof. And open walls. And then all these you know, sort of stands and everything for the kids. And then they sang, the whole school sang. It was incredible. I never heard anything like that, before or since, you know. Such incredible singing by these children. You know what I mean? Anyway, they were very happy. 'Cause They all got prizes. Of course, I would like to have given a prize to everybody, but I, we couldn't do that. Yeah. There were, you know, literally I mean, like, I don't know, thousands of essays.

MacG (19:24):

What do you think about the GNU now? Where do you think the country's going? Are you happy with what's happening?

Errol Musk (19:29):

Yeah. I think things are much better now.I've always said, you know, and I've told, like, I tell like the people at the top that I meet, I say to them straight, you know, you have to include, you can't go on just having black guys in the cabinet. You have to bring everybody, and you have to bring in people. You have to include white people in government.

That's where we should head. So we are like mixed up, you know what I mean? Then everything will get much better. And you know, I can understand, you know, why it's not like that. But now we had this election in May [2024], and now they've included a few guys from the opposition in the cabinet, and I think there's four cabinet positions now in the hands of the opposition…made up of different people. I mean, some are white, some are black, some are colored.

And now four of them are in the cabinet, and it wasn't even one month, then the rand suddenly became 10% better. You know what I mean? So obviously, that’s the direction we have to go. We have to include you know, we can't just go on the way it is, you know, we have to include the best people, not, you know, not just look at one group. I think obviously, what I'm saying is not rocket science. It's simple.

MacG (20:52):

Obviously we all know you as an engineer, but how did you start making like, real, real money?

Errol Musk (21:00):

No, I grew up very poor, you know, Mack. And I when I say poor, I mean, I never had money for school,

MacG ((21:12):

So hard to believe that a white person was poor in SA [South Africa] during that time!

Errol Musk (21:14):

Yeah. I was a poor boy…eh, you know what was really strange is I never had the right uniform, and I never had the right stuff. I never could buy sports things or anything like that. But the strange thing was that I was always number one in class. So that was kind of strange. So from grade one to matric [12th grade], and after at university, I was number one in class, you see?

So that was kind of funny, you know? And it made things a bit odd. So when I came out of school, you know, I, studied engineering because I was, I got seven scholarships to go to university.

So Anglo [South African mining company Anglo-American] and all, all the people gave me a scholarship, so I was able to go to university, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to go to university. And then I remember the dean of the faculty of engineering telling us, if you’re an engineer, you mustn't expect to make money because engineering is a special calling to help people, you know? So I thought, ooh, that doesn't sound fun.

But when I started working, I started working for a firm of consulting engineers. Consulting engineers are people that you come to with a problem that's very vague. You say, I'm thinking of building this building, or putting in this pipeline or this railway line, but I'm not sure how. Then the engineer works everything out, you see? Then afterwards people see it and they say, oh, wow. You know, but engineers, fantastic.

But anyway, I got into this business and the firm I worked for was from England. And they were not taking South Africa seriously. They were getting jobs because everybody worshiped the people if they came from England. You know, in those days, the late sixties, if you came from England, you must be something special, you know.

So the people here worshiped the people that came from England, you know, but these people from England treated us very badly. And then they didn't do the jobs properly. So the government said to this firm, look, they're canceling their jobs because they weren't taking it serious. So then they said, ah, we're closing our office here. We're gonna go back to England 'cause it's not worth it. They said…there was this older man in the practice who was 10 years older than me. I was 23. And he said to me, why don't you, we take over this practice? So I said, well, okay. So we took over the practice. It was very hard. And, you know, my mother and father put up their house for me to loan, their little house, for me to be able to get a loan. 'Cause it was very hard to get money in South Africa those days so that I could buy this practice. 'Cause we paid in today's money, we paid like 800,000 rand [U.S. $44,000] for it, you know? Which was a lot of money at the time. Yeah. In today's money. And then of course, you know, I was 23.

But anyway, we bought the practice, and then we just went on very well. But the older guy that was with me, he didn't like the insecurity because in this kind of work, there's no regular pay, you know, no regular income, you know, and it's hard to get people to give you job, employ you. But anyways, so he left, he said he wants to go. So I said, no, it's fine. So he left, and then I was on my own. But then people just kept coming to me constantly for work. And I had to, basically, within three or four years, I was handling 40 projects simultaneously. And I know that because people would come to me and say, do you realize you're handling 40 projects simultaneously? So for example, in 1972, roughly two years after we started, I already was doing very well…and I was able to marry, and Elon was born that time. And, I already had an airplane. And I drove a Mercedes-Benz.

MacG (25:02):

You had an airplane?

Errol Musk (25:03):

Yes. I bought my first airplane when I was 24. And then, because I was doing very well, I found that I was very good at that work. And I never said no to people. You know, they'd come to me and say they want to do something. And then I, I'd say, no, it's not a problem. We could do it.

MacG (25:19):

So when do you get into the mining business? When did you start owning that mine?

Errol Musk (25:22):

No, that's much later. So then, for example, in the work that happened, the, what do I say, rich people, the more well off guys than me, older men, you know, they'd come, would work with me. And then they, they came one time, three guys came to me and they said, the older men, you know, much older than me, and they said they want to buy a piece of land in Pretoria and put up a shopping center there. Do I want to join them? So I said, right. So of course, I said, all right. So we bought this piece of land. And today it's Menlyn [a large mall in Pretoria].

MacG (25:59):

Menlyn! Mall? Wow. Wow. It's massive, eh?

Errol Musk (26:05):

Yeah. So we put up Menlyn Mall. In those days I even brought people from…

MacG (26:09):

Do you still own it? You left that business long ago, or do you still own it?

Errol Musk (26:14):

No, no, no. I just put it up. We built it…

MacG (26:17):

Okay. And put it up.

Errol Musk (26:18):

But I was a shareholder. We are talking about the early seventies. Yes. When, you know, Menlyn was sold, I think I got 400,000 rand. Today. I mean, that would be 40 million today [U.S. $2.16 million]. But I mean, in those days, that was a lot of money. You could buy a house for, I don't know, for 15,000 [rand].

So then I practiced as a consulting engineer, and I was a shareholder of many buildings after that. And you know, and then in 1980, my wife, who I loved very much, and I, unfortunately, we, we separated. And my two boys stayed with me. So I had Elon and Kimbal at home with me.

And I had to look after them. So I sold my practice to the engineers that worked for me. And I moved on to doing only projects for special clients, like Hyperama [a South African Walmart clone] and Yskor [a South African mining company]. And and so more or less, I lived on the shareholdings that I had.

We bought a horse farm and everything. And 'cause I was a single parent, so I took my children, my two boys, Elon and Kimbal to school. That's one thing I'm proud of.

People say, are you proud? I say, I'm very happy that they've done well, Elon and Kimbal. What I'm proud of is I took them to school every day and back for their whole school career. You know, in the morning, in the afternoon. In the morning, afternoon. And if you know what that's like, you know, you come back in the afternoon, then you gotta go back again for soccer, sport, and then, for extra lessons, and then for this, then for that, then for this, and…

MacG (27:58):

You [were] all alone. This time?

Errol Musk (28:00):

I was all alone. But I lived in Sandton [an affluent residential and office park neighborhood in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg] on a…I raised, I bred horses, you know? So it was very nice. We had a wonderful time at that time.

MacG (28:09):

When does the mine start? When does that happen?

Errol Musk (28:11):

That's much later in, in about 1985. You may recall that there was a lot of pressure on South Africa to end apartheid. And as it happened, in my work that I was doing, I knew all these people…P.W. Botha, who was Prime Minister or President [he was Prime Minister from 1978 to 1984, then President from 1984 to 1989], his daughter often stayed with us. And his wife, Elise, often came to our home you know, to visit, to, to bring flowers to us. She had a very nice home in Pretoria. Today, our home, where Elon grew up, is the residence of the European ambassador to South Africa. That's the home we had. So I bought that house when I was 26. So that gives you some idea of how well I was doing.

Today it's probably one of the best houses in Pretoria. It belongs, I mean, it's used by the European Union now. Used to be the headquarters of the United Nations in Southern Africa. Anyway, so in 1985 as I say, I knew a lot of these people. I knew most of the cabinet ministers, and I used to have lunch with them about once a week. Sometimes they would invite me to lunch. And I used to argue with them about the circumstances. Everybody was trying to find a solution to South Africa in those days. It's wrong to think that, that the guys were not trying to find a solution, you know? Everybody was trying to find a solution. Nobody knew what to do.

You have to remember what we, what we had in South Africa, we inherited from the European countries. If you look at it, actually, we inherited South Africa from, from the European countries, Britain and everything. They gave us all the rules, you know?

Anyway, so in ‘85, everybody was trying hard to find out what, decide what to do. And my partner that I had at that time in, not in consulting engineering, but in property development, he said he can't take it anymore. And he left for America. He went in ‘81. And anyway, so in ‘85, P.W. Botha made a speech in Parliament, called a speech, that was the, what speech was it called again? Anyway, it was some sort of speech that he made that there will never be a black government in South Africa. [He is referring to P.W. Botha’s Rubicon Speech, when he defied international expectations that he would begin reforms to the apartheid system, resulting in severe consequences including intensified international sanctions and a steep drop in the value of the South African rand.]

We decided now we are going on like this. You see And the result was massive pressure from overseas. And so the kind of work I was in, people were not interested in anymore. So, as you see now, how much development takes place up there in Joburg now, even in Cape Town. But it, but then it just stopped. Everything stopped. 'cause no one wanted to put their money down, you know, to develop anything. I mean, you can understand everybody was scared. And then my type of work just stopped. But not only, although I was living on, on money, I had it, it was hard for me too. And so I had a very big airplane at that time. Well, big small airplane. Yeah. A, a big twin engine business plane, business aircraft that could fly as high as jets and as the airlines.

Hmm. And I, I tried to sell it 'cause I thought, oh, we're not using it. And before that, I used to get charter work on it, but anyway, I couldn't. So then I phoned a company in England and they said, if I bring it there, I can, they'll give me a good price for it. So I set off to England with the plane. And when we were, our next leg on the flight was to Jeddah in [Saudi] Arabia, you know? And then they told us on the telex those days, we just had telex. I don’t know if you know, telex is like internet email, but it's the olden days one, you know, it comes on little paper. They told us that we can't come, if we come now to Jeddah, they're having Eid, which is a Muslim festival, where thousands of people come. And then if we come, we're gonna have to pay U.S.$200 to land and 600 U.S. to park every day.

So I thought, well, no, that's too much. So we decided I'll, we'll, but they said if we come back in 10 days time, we don't have to pay to land. And they will, they'll give us fuel at 5 cents U.S. a liter. So I said, okay. So we turned around and we went to Lake Tanganyika to have a look. You know, now Lake Tanganyika is 900 kilometers long, 200 kilometers wide. It's unbelievable. So it's from Cape Town to Bloemfontein long. Anyway, so we flew there, and then I landed at a newly built airfield. And I met a company that was registered in Panama, Italians that were building roads, and that actually built this airfield as well for the Zambian government. And I told them, they asked me about the plane, and I said, well, I'm gonna sell it in England. And then they said, well, if you sell it to us, we'll take it. You see? So I said, all right, fine. So they paid me the same money. And then I said, we stayed with them for a bit a few days, and then they said to us if we, if I give them half the money back, then they will give me half their shares in an emerald mine. And then they promptly presented me with about 118, as I recall, 118 Cut emeralds. Yeah. Zambian emeralds, and said, you can have these as a deposit. And then we were also…

MacG (33:52):

These are the Italian guys?

Errol Musk (33:53):

Yeah. They said, if I give them half the money back, they'll give me these emeralds. They're all cut. And then I'd never seen an emerald actually before that. And you know, I knew what an emerald was, but I'd never seen it. And they said, they'll give these, and then they'll give me rough emeralds from the mine on a regular basis. So I said, okay, that's fine. So I gave them half the money back. And I took the emeralds and then I started selling the emeralds when I came back to South Africa. And I found if you it was hard at first, but I found if you go to the very top jewelers, you know, you have to find the very top jewelers, and then you can sell the emeralds quite easily to the rich people, the people overseas and all that stuff. Because they cost a lot of money. The emeralds, you know, and they, you, they sell, they're very nice jewelry, you know. So I sold emeralds for years. I eventually got a cutter in Eloff Street in Johannesburg [then the heart of the city’s commercial and shopping district] to do cutting and polishing emeralds for me. And I sold emeralds everywhere in England, Europe, Germany.

MacG (34:53):

That's madness, eh?

Errol Musk (34:54):

Austria. New York, everywhere.

MacG (34:57):

Yeah. I read in an article with Business Insider South Africa they said, you claimed you once made more money than you could physically handle from the mine you co-owned: ”We were very wealthy. We had so much money, at times we couldn't even close our safe.”

Errol Musk (35:13):

Well, you know, I mean, you know, it's long ago. So I suppose I can talk now, but when you, when somebody came to you, like after I started cutting emeralds, then I would get calls from the cutters and they would say that they've got somebody who's got a parcel. They call it a parcel of emerald. Rough, rough emerald, you see? And they would say to me, are you interested to buy it? Then I would say, okay, what do they look like? The cutter would say, it's good, you know, it's really good. ou know, or it's not so good, or it's good, you know, it's average. Or usually it was good, you know? Because you get very good quality emeralds from Rhodesia, from the old Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, I mean, and, and from Zambia, you know, but not such good quality from South Africa.

But anyway, so I would meet people, you know, and they would show me the emeralds. I would meet them, for example, for example, in the middle of a main street in Johannesburg at 12 o'clock in the midday with all the people walking around by the traffic lights, by the robot [South African word for traffic light], by the traffic light. Because all the people are there, then we stand by the traffic light and they open their parcel. They show it to me. Then I look, then, in my plastic bag next to me, I've got like it looks like a loaf of bread, but it's 50 rand notes. So it's like 50,000 in a plastic bag, you see? But it looks like a loaf of bread. Then they look in the plastic bag, you see, and I tell them it's 50,000.

'Cause you can't go inside a building because they're scared in the building, you will kill them. Yeah. And take the emeralds, you see. And if I go in, they might take the money, you know, and, and knock me on the head. You understand. So you do it out in the street. So you do these exchanges of the money with the emeralds was with cash. Everything was cash. Even when I sold emeralds through the jewelers, it was cash. It was always a lot of money in cash. So

MacG (37:21):

You were swimming in money, eh?

Errol Musk (37:24):

No. Well, yes. Look, in those days, 50 rands was the biggest note, but it was a very big note, you know, it was quite big. Not like the notes today. And so, you know, 50,000 rands was like a a heavy loaf of bread, you know? And I mean sometimes I had as much as 150,000 in a bag. But I would take the money home and put it into the safe, you know, because we used it again to buy more emeralds later on, you know, to keep on going, you know? Yeah. Because we did this for about seven years and the safe was not that big.

And so I would stash the money in there, you know, and I'd tell my two boys, Elon and Kimbal, they can take money from the safe for anything they need. They must just leave a note. A little white note. Sometimes I would open the safe and the notes would all fall out. But, but yeah. No, I did put a lot of money into the safe like that, you know,

MacG (38:16):

So, why would Elon then tweet, I think it was December, 2019, he tweeted, you didn't own an emerald mine and “I worked my way through college ending up, $100,000 in student debt”?

Errol Musk (38:31):

Well, you know it's, first of all, it's my children, you know, so they got an axe to grind, you see. But no, I never owned a mine, but I received rough from a mine called Katanga mine in Zimbabwe, from the people that I did the deal with, the airplane. [Katanga is an area where there are a lot of mines in the south of the Democratic People’s Republic of Congo, near the border with Zambia but there does not seem to have ever been a “Katanga Mine” in Zimbabwe.]

Elon came up to the mine with me. He was at the mine. Now, so he knows very well. And they also, when they were once in New York, they actually took some stones that I had with me. I used to go overseas, take a few stones with me, and then take them to the good jewelers and then say, would you like to buy these stones? 'Cause I sold them very cheaply. I mean I would sell a stone, I remember selling a stone to Tiffany's in New York, Elon and Kimbal took them to show them first. I sold them to Tiffany's, one for $1,200 and the other one for $800. And when I, they said to us at Tiffany's, they said, if we come back in a few days, I'll just give you an example. They said, if we come back in a few days, we can see the stones set into a ring, into rings. So I said, okay. So we came back about four days later and I saw the people at Tiffany's again, and they said, yeah, come and have a look. And they showed me the one ring that had the $800 stone. And it's very few people can tell me how much they wanted for that ring. Only experienced jewelers can tell me how much they wanted for their ring with a stone in it. 'Cause I sold the stone for $800. And when you ask people how much did they want for the ring? And then people say, oh, I'm sure they wanted 3,000 bucks. No, the ring was on sale for $21,500.

MacG (40:21):

Jeez.

Errol Musk (40:22):

So the markup on the jeweler's side is huge. It's about 20 times. Whereas the markup from me was not like that. You know, I would mark up seven times just to be able to carry on, you know? And no, no. Elon knows all about the emeralds, but it's just because you see, he wants to tell the people in America that he also had a hard time, you know what I mean?

MacG (40:47):

Got you.

Errol Musk (40:47):

And admittedly, you know, when he went to university, the university costs where he was, what, $250,000 a year, 250,000 rands a year back then. At Wharton Business School. So I would give them all the money I had for them to study there, I would send to them, but I couldn't pay that kind of money. So he took a loan, he took loans. And I don't think he has anything to complain about, because he paid off those loans within four years of leaving university. You know, within four years of leaving university, he was a multimillionaire. Dollar multimillionaire.

MacG (41:29):

You know, I wanna chat about Elon's mom, how you guys met and stuff. But before that, the, incident with the guys came into your house and you shot them. What happened there?

Errol Musk (41:41):

Well, one night I had a house, where I used to keep the horses on this property. And as time went by that place…

MacG (41:48):

In Pretoria?

Errol Musk (41:49):

In Johannesburg. Sandton.

MacG (41:51):

Sandton. Okay.

Errol Musk (41:51):

That’s where we had the horses. It was 12 acres. So about 900 meters from Montecasino [a casino and hotel complex that opened in the 1990s].

MacG (42:02):

Oh, there by the farms there at the back there.

Errol Musk (42:04):

Yeah, there by Lone Hill.

MacG (42:08):

Okay.

Errol Musk (42:08):

Yeah. And and anyway, so half of that I turned into housing, but around there they were putting up houses all the time. So I had the six acres that were still left, and I had two houses on that. And so what I did was, I would keep them with tenants. I would rent them out until we could, because again, with the sort of collapse of the economy in South Africa, things were very difficult to get going in the early nineties and stuff like that, you know, it was very difficult to get anything moving because people were scared, you know, to put their money down. So it took me, I had 50 stands [a South African word to mean plot of land for a house] there, 50 stands, house stands, and I sold them only in 2001.

Errol Musk (42:57):

But anyway, the thing is, I had these two houses, and I used to look after these two houses, paint them and everything, and rent them out. One night I went there with my daughter. She was six years of age. Went at about five o'clock to check the painters, I lived in Pretoria then, I had a house in Pretoria. And I came across to the house and to see how the painting was going. And when I was there the painters left. And then my daughter, she was six years old. She said she wants to have a bath there. So she, there was no towels or anything, but she wanted to have a bath. So she went to the main bedroom, ran a bath, and I always carried a gun with me because there was a lot of killing and gang-related problems in Sandton at that time.

Errol Musk (43:40):

And so I put the gun on the shelf in the bathroom, and then I heard some noise in the lounge. I went to the lounge, and there was a lot of people in the lounge, a lot of black men in the lounge. And I asked them, I thought maybe they wanted to rent the place. I had an electric fence around because I didn't understand how they got through the electric fence, but anyway. And then the one guy just raised his, he had a tie and jacket on, and I thought, well, he must be the one who wants to rent. But he raised his left arm, and then he fired a gun at me.

MacG (44:14):

He was trying to kill you?

Errol Musk (44:16):

Yeah. He fired a gun at me, straight at me. But he, he fired from the hip, you know? And so he missed me, or I might have moved, I'm not sure what happened. But there was a glass door behind me, and the whole door came down. And then I realized, you know, quickly, the moment I rushed down the passage, was a very big house with a long, twisting, long, turning passage. And then I went to, I ran to the bathroom, and I grabbed my gun. And then as they came down the passage, you know, I shot, shot them.

MacG (44:46):

Geez, I heard you killed three people that night, huh?

Errol Musk (44:49):

Well, I only fired two shots. One shot killed two people, and then, and later on, another guy tried to shoot me, and we shot at the same time. And he shot, and I shot, I hit him in the groin, and his shot went into a metal frame that was in front of me. It went, it would've hit me here [points to chest]. But I was standing behind this frame, and it hit the frame, thin frame, an aluminum frame and otherwise would've hit me. Yeah. I would be dead. But unfortunately, he died. And so I only fired two shots, but they fired 52 shots.

MacG (45:22):

52?

Errol Musk (45:24):

The police picked up 52 shells, 52 shells.

MacG (45:28):

While they're trying to get you? All these shots, or they just…? Geez, bro.

Errol Musk (45:32):

They fired 52 shots. I fired two shots. And you know, you know, I'm firing a Magnum, so it's a very powerful gun. And so, you know, a bullet went through two people, you could say. And then I'm not proud of it. I'm not proud of it. You know.

MacG (45:50):

And your daughter, she's still like, she's still, she was

Errol Musk (45:52):

With me the whole time. She was naked. And we actually, with all the shooting, they shot the glass of all the windows out. With all their shooting. The house cost a lot of money to fix afterwards. Then we climbed out through a window, me and my daughter, into the garden. We were able to climb through the window because the window was smashed out from the bullets, and we managed to escape into the garden. And then the police, no, the AFT [private security service] came. And they were all black guys, and they had sawn-off shotguns, and they went into the property to see what's going on. So that was very helpful. But yeah, just terrible experience. Well, my daughter. It was not great. Not great.

MacG (46:38):

Yeah. It sounds like trauma, man.

Errol Musk (46:39):

Well, you know. Yeah. You know, I mean yeah.

MacG (46:44):

And how did the court case go?

Errol Musk (46:46):

No. Well, you know, they, they said I was you know, you have to face the law now, and whether it was murder, and I couldn't understand why they would think it would be murder, but they said to me, the police said to me, you could have been a drug dealer or something. And then you brought your distributors to the house, and then you had an argument, and then you killed them. And then you said self defense, they tried to break in and kill you or something like that. And so, so I said, oh, okay, I get it now. So we had an inquest or something at Randburg [suburb of Johannesburg] court, you know. At the courts in Randburg. And it was declared self-defense, you know? Not too happy about it, but yeah. I mean, it was not a pleasant thing, you know?

MacG (47:36):

Do you have flashbacks of that night?

Errol Musk (47:38):

Oh, you never forget it. You can't forget it. No, you can't forget it. I lost hearing in my right ear because of the noise. You know, the police said to me afterwards, you won't be able to, you're gonna have hearing damage. And I don't remember any sound, but within a few days, I could not hear anything with my right ear. Yeah. I'm deaf in the right ear now.

MacG (47:58):

Yeah, no, I can tell. Cause I keep having to shout!

Errol Musk (47:38):

That's true.

MacG (48:05):

No, but it's fine. Wow. That's insane.

Errol Musk (48:07):

But anyway. No, I mean, I'm not happy about it, I mean, but you know, what can I say?

MacG (48:13):

Did you ever meet the guys, like the other guys that ran away?

Errol Musk (48:17):

No. They’re in Cairo now!

MacG (48:18):

Yeah.

Errol Musk (48:19):

They must still be running. I don't know. No, no, no. On that property that I lived on, I had a lot of rooms, you know? Yeah. And Mike's Kitchen [a South African restaurant chain founded in Johannesburg in 1972], I had 12 stables there, and these were really nice rooms and two bathrooms. And Mike's Kitchen came to me. Remember Mike's Kitchen? The restaurant.

MacG (48:38):

Yeah. It's still, still, there's…

Errol Musk (48:39):

They came to me, can we turn your, these rooms into rooms for our staff? So I said, sure. So they went in and they changed it into, like, beautiful rooms. Beautiful bathroom, two beautiful bathrooms and everything. And so I had a lot of these guys who worked at Mike's Kitchen staying on the property, So they all came up and they were very helpful. They surrounded the place for me. After that. And they helped me a lot, you know, all black guys. And they, they, you know, in case they came back. In case there was revenge needed, you know, something like that. So, oh, no, I never had any idea who it was that broke in.

MacG (49:16):

So can you take me back to the day you meet Elon's mother now? What was, what's going on? Where were you at?

Errol Musk (49:23):

No, no. I met Maye's mother. I came from England, you know, my mom took me and my brother back to England when, in 1955, 56, because my father, she married my father, you know, he was always shaking and everything. And he could never get a job. And he was a wreck, you know, like I said. And she decided, no, she's, she's leaving him, she's going back to England.

So she took me and my brother with, and she went back to England. They didn't divorce. They just, she just left my father. And we went back to live in England, and then we came back to South Africa. It was very interesting for me to go to England, because England was a place where I found they actually like children, you know. And they're very nice to children. Whereas in South Africa, you know, it was a place where for children, every day you got a hiding [a beating] every day. Doesn't matter if you were good or bad. You got a hiding. You know what I'm talking about.

MacG (50:18):

A hundred percent.

Errol Musk (50:19):

No, every day. Yeah. So it doesn't matter whether you were good or bad, you got a hiding every day. If you went to school and you said, and you didn't do something quick enough, they bring you to the front, they hit you. You know what I mean? But when I went to England, I found no, no, it's not like that. They like the children. They actually like kids in England. It was quite a good experience. Anyway, we came back to South Africa when I was in standard five [seventh grade]. And I went to the school and Maye was in standard three [fifth grade].

MacG (50:48):

The same school?

Errol Musk (50:48):

Yes. And then we went to the same high school together. And then I started taking her out when she was in standard nine [eleventh grade]. And I was out of school. I was in first year [freshman year of university] or something. And she, you know, we just clicked right away. And we went out for six years. And then we got married, and Elon was born nine months and two days after we were married.

So we were very great. I thought we had a wonderful life together. But people grow differently. I liked sailing. I liked flying. She hated sailing. She hated flying. You know? And so I always say, you know, when we used to go flying, she could talk to Canada, because she was born in Canada, you see? Yeah. She came out here when she was two, two years old. But when we were flying, I'd say, what do they say to me? What does Maye do? I'd say, well, she's always on the long distance telephone to Canada, you see? So she's busy all the time. Long distance was a big tin. A big tin. You see a big tin. And then she'd go, woooooahh [mimes screaming into a tin].

MacG (51:52):

Yeah.

Errol Musk (51:52):

And then we would say, oh, the people in Canada, they can hear this. You see, then they're talking to her, you see? Just a joke. Yeah. And no, so we split up and we went our separate ways. And it was very terrible for me at the time, but since then, I remarried and I have two daughters. With my second wife, which I can't imagine a world without them. It's just impossible to imagine a world without my two daughters that I had later.

MacG (52:18):

At that time was Maye the, hottest most beautiful woman you've…

Errol Musk (52:22):

Well, no. Well, Maye at school, was a slightly heavier built girl. And actually what happened was we broke up when she was in final year and, and, and no, wait a minute, when we were going out [dating], still going out.

Her parents, by the way, were very fanatical in favor of apartheid. This is quite interesting. Her parents came to South Africa from Canada because they sympathized with the Afrikaaner government [see The World According to Elon Musk’s Grandfather for details]. They used to support Hitler and, and all that sort of stuff. But they didn't know, obviously, I don't think they knew what the Germans, what the Nazis were doing. But in Canada, they were in the Nazi, they were in the German party in Canada. And they sympathized with the Germans. So when the Afrikaans government came into power here in 1948, then Maye's father, who was quite an interesting guy, he was a very good pilot. He said he wants to be with the Afrikaans because he agrees with apartheid, you see? You see what I mean? And he came out here with his family.

MacG (53:35):

Didn't that cause tension with you because you…

Errol Musk (53:37):

Yeah. That caused a lot of tension with me. And 'cause I was a member, I was a director of the National Union of South African students, which is a very anti apartheid body, you know? And I argued with them a lot, and they used to tell me, it used to be like, rude to me, you know? And the parents. And then when I was, when Maye was, you know, final year [of high school] round about that time, I said, look, I'm not doing this anymore. I don't want to come to your house anymore. I don't like your parents. So then she cried, she said, but don't worry about them. I said, no, I'm finished. I'm not interested in this nonsense. And her parents even said, they're gonna get somebody else to go out with her.

Errol Musk (54:22):

They didn't even want me to go out with her. You know, things like that. You know, typical. Typical, you know, not, no it's quite normal. You're getting that everywhere. Anyway, so then Maye cried. She cried for three weeks. She told me, I was told she, she didn't stop crying for three weeks, but then she lost all her weight. And she became very thin from crying, didn't eat.

And then somebody said to her, she should enter Miss Transvaal [a former South African province], or something like that. And she entered and she won. So she became Miss Transvaal, and then they asked her to enter into Miss South Africa. So she entered it. She was one of the 10 finalists, Miss South Africa in 1969. In the meantime, I wasn't seeing her. But then we later met, met up with each other afterwards, and then we said to her parents, listen, we are getting married, you know, do what you like. And then it never came right with her parents. Never came right.

MacG (55:14):

Do you remember how Elon was conceived? Where, where were you guys?

Errol Musk (55:19):

No, no. We, I was, as I said to you earlier, Mac, you know, when I left university, I was determined that I'm not going to be poor. My kids are not going to go to school without, you know, some 50 cents for a Coke or something, you know what I mean? I never had that. And then, so by the time Maye and I got married, which was when I was 24. And she was 22, I took her to Europe on a honeymoon. So I was already doing well. I was doing enough well to be able to take her for a three week tour to Europe.

MacG (55:56):

So he was conceived in Europe?

Errol Musk (55:58):

We honeymooned in Europe. It's amazing, if I look back, because I was 24 years old. And I already bought an airplane and everything, but I had people who came to me all the time for their work. And I couldn't believe how much money they paid you as a consulting engineer. I mean, you know it was amazing to me that you could, you could make so much money.

MacG (56:20):

I'm trying to find out what position you guys were doing. So maybe that's the position to have a genius, you know, if you wanna have a genius.

Errol Musk (56:25):

Elon showed the same thing. So, for example, in the first four years that he was out of university, he made, he turned a company that he started with $4 million that he loaned. He got this loan, he turned that into a company worth, in less than four years, in about three years. Three and a bit years. He turned that into a company worth $500 million. $300 million in cash. And so when he was already 27, 28, he was worth 150 million rands or something.

MacG (57:02):

Incredible.

Errol Musk (57:03):

So he did this, he did the same. He just did it better than me, you know, better than me. But Maye and I met, and then we went to Europe, and the first place we went to was in France. Nice. I think it was. And we, so I suppose Elon was conceived in Nice, in France.

MacG (57:22):

Oh, man. Good times. Sowhat would you say, why do you think the marriage ended? Why did you guys separate?

Errol Musk (57:30):

To this day, I don't know. But you know, if you do too well. You know, in those days, we were head of the, the top of the social pile, top of the financial pile, you know, top of the political pile, you know, you could say at, I became a city council, Pretoria. So we were used to a sort of too much good life, you know? And so when you have too much good life, you start to, as a man, you know, you, you just start being casual, you know, about everything. And I remember, you know, famous or important people would phone me and I'm watching TV or something, and I'd say, no, they must phone later. I'm watching TV. I wouldn't do that today.

MacG (58:07):

So you became cocky.

Errol Musk (58:08):

Yeah. I became cocky. Yeah. Very cocky. And I was not concerned with my wife, and I not, not concerned. I was not like you, you know, you change, you know? And I started doing things on my own and going away to places on my own and stuff. And that's the end of a marriage, you know, when that happens.

MacG (58:26):

Women love attention. They need attention all the time.

Errol Musk (58:29):

Yes. I'm totally guilty of that, I don't blame her at all. And I realized that if I hadn't been like that, it wouldn't have happened. But on the other hand, it gave her a chance to also go out and do things of her own. She was quite a capable person. And she went out and she did a lot of modeling, and she continued with her studies. She got an M.A. degree, M.Sc. degree. And she went on and recently the University of the Free State gave her an honorary doctorate.

MacG (58:57):

I read, you said, “I screwed up the marriage. My former wife doesn't speak to me even when we're in the same room. She won't even speak to me.” Is that still the same till to this day? That don't speak to me at

Errol Musk (59:07):

Not even today. No, she won’t speak to me.

MacG (59:10):

But you guys had beautiful memories, made beautiful kids. The successful…

Errol Musk (59:15):

Elon said to her, she must get back with me. But no, she, yeah. I don’t know. You know, you can't, these kind of things, all is fair in love and war, there's no rules. o, you know, if you want to ask me about rules, I'll ask you what's happening with your life, and then you'll tell me, oh, oh…

MacG (59:36):

So I also read that Maye said that you were very abusive, physically, abusive.

Errol Musk (59:41):

She made all that up. She made all that up. It came recently. You know, I mean, we've been divorced for 44 years.

MacG (59:49):

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Errol Musk (59:51):

So two and a half years after she left, she came to see me with a friend of hers who's quite a well-known Johannesburg woman, Gaenor Becker. She started G3 Modeling Agency. So she was pretty well known. And they came to see me and Gaenor said to me, look, you two need to talk about things and, you know, make up your lives together. But that was only two and a half years after we were divorced, and they had gone off with others, a couple of other men, I wasn't, I said, no, I'm not interested. You know, I was stupid. I should have said yes. But on the other hand, you do what you have to do. And I just said, no. So in the time that we, after we split up, two and a half years later, she came back. Wanted to make up again, and I said, no.

But at any rate for many years she stayed on in Johannesburg. Maye lived in Johannesburg near me. And so I would see her quite often. Occasionally we would go, go somewhere for lunch with the children. So she never spoke about anything like that. And then she moved to America. And I saw her a few times. But as time went by, she became more distant from me. And only recently when these books have been written. She started saying, no, I did this to her. And I did that to her.

In fact, I saw this written in some article that my daughter, Tosca, who was very tiny at that time, five years old when we were divorced, she said that I would, Tosca, she said I would be hitting Maye, and then Elon would be pulling me away from Maye by my legs, and they would be crying in the corner. So I got hold of my daughter, Tosca and I said, what is this? So my daughter Tosca said to me, oh, dad, don't worry, it's just the media. I said, no, well, you know, this is not right. You know, but anyway, they’ve taken that route. And she's a kind of woman, I think that she says to the children, if you love me, you will not like your father. You know, you'll treat your father, in order to help me, you must be bad, treat your father badly.

MacG (1:01:58):

I want to read some of the stuff that she said in her book. She alleged that you threatened to cut her face with a razor blade. You called her ugly, boring, stupid.

Errol Musk (1:02:08):

No. No.

MacG (1:02:09):

Hence you didn't have friends. You cheated on her.

Errol Musk (1:02:11):

No.

MacG (1:02:12):

“Everybody I knew I called him the pig because he treated me so badly,” she told Harper's Bazaar. “The pig.”

Errol Musk (1:02:17):

No.

MacG (1:02:18):

…Adding that, she felt scared and embarrassed to speak about your behavior. So these are some of the stuff that she said

Errol Musk (1:02:26):

Completely untrue.

MacG (1:02:27):

But my thing is, why would your ex-wife say that, your kids say that? Like, what do they benefit from saying all of…

Errol Musk (1:02:33):

No, they never saw anything like that. So they just maybe agreeing with her. But I mean, no, no, there's no truth in it at all.

MacG (1:02:40):

What, what do they benefit from, from lying?

Errol Musk (1:02:42):

I don't know. I, I really don’t know why she's done it. I've spoken about this on several things. All I can say is that people, if they hurt, if they feel hurt or if they feel they got a raw deal or something, they might do that kind of thing. But there's absolutely no truth in that.

And you know, we were still going out together as a couple the night before she gave me the papers for divorce. I mean, we were still going out as a couple. We had no problems at all. I knew, in fact, it wasn't even three weeks before I got these divorce papers that she told a group of people, and I can mention the names of the people that were there. She said to them, and they were talking about divorce, because in 1980, you could now get a divorce without a reason. [In South Africa, the no-fault divorce Act came into effect on 1 July 1979.]

They were all talking about the new law that came in. Before 1980, you couldn't get a divorce unless you had a reason. But then after 1980, a new law came in all over the world that you could get a divorce if you have irreconcilable differences. So people were talking about this at this supper one evening at a dinner. And then Maye said, she's not worried about that. This is three weeks before she served me with papers for divorce, because her and I will be together for 50 years.

MacG (1:04:08):

But if you were doing this, would she come up now and say, yes, I did beat her up, did cheat on her?

Errol Musk (1:04:13):

No, that's not true. No, no, it's false. It would be crazy for me. I'm not like that. I, you know, ask anybody who knows me. I'm not, that's not who I am. I never done anything like that. Maye was, let's put it like this, as far as Maye was concerned, one thing that was good about her parents was that they were very puritan. They didn't like you to swear, so you couldn't use any bad language in front of them.

MacG (1:04:37):

Yes, yes, yes,

Errol Musk (1:04:37):

Which I thought was quite a good thing. And if I, for example, when Maye and I were married, I would come home and I had a hard time sometimes, at work, I'd come home and I'd say, “Oh, I had a hell of a day. A hell of a day.” Then she would say, “You mustn't swear in front of me.” And then I'd say, “Oh, sorry.” Then if I did it, then she would say, “I'm going to tell my mother that you're swearing.” So even swearing in front of her was not possible. So if I was hitting her, she would go tell her mother.

MacG (1:05:11):

So did you, did you confront her and ask her, like, why are you saying all these things?

Errol Musk (1:05:16):

Yes, I did. I sent her a message through my daughter. I said to her, I can read the message on my phone, I think, still have it on my phone. I said to her that I'm reading that you say, I did treat you very badly, that you say, I did treat you very badly. I said I don't know why you are saying this, because I always thought we were one person, like one person. And that we loved each other to bits. And I said, I loved you anyway, so I can't understand why you're saying this. I also finished off that thing by saying that what I remember is that I would be sitting in my office thinking about Maye, and then suddenly the door would open and there she would be. So I loved her very much. Yeah. No, I loved her. I would never have hurt her in any way.

Dudu [off camera producer] (1:06:06):

So why is it that the children that you have with your second wife, they speak differently of you in comparison to the children you had with your first wife?

Errol Musk (1:06:19):

Well, you know, my daughter,

MacG (1:06:22):

That's our producer, by the way, Dudu.

Errol Musk (1:06:26):

No, I, recently, last year with the person who was doing some interviews with me, Alec Van Der Walt, you know SABC [state-owned South African Broadcasting Corporation], not SABC MultiChoice [a cable TV provider]. What's that Afrikaans program called?

MacG (1:06:48):

KykNet [an Afrikaans-language cable station]

Errol Musk (1:06:49):

KykNet, came to see me to do an interview with me [in Afrikaans here]. And then they also asked me the same questions. So Anika [not clear who this is] got hold of Ali [Errol Musk’s daughter with his second wife] to make a statement to do a video with KykNet. I think that's still coming out. And Ali made the statement to KykNet, which she said that you couldn't possibly have a better father than me.

MacG (1:07:13):

Wow.

Errol Musk (1:07:14):

It's not possible. Long statement. And she said that you know, everything that she has become, everything that's happened to her, she owes to her, to me, which is very nice of her to say that. And so ja, that's quite different.

And so this has had an effect on the other children, Elon, Kimbal, and Tosca, because Elon, Kimbal, and Tosca see Ali, Alexandra, and Rose as their sisters completely. And so they all form one family overseas in America today. So if they have any functions or anything, they all five are together everywhere, you know, they all go together. And so that's very nice, nice for me, because I like it that they are seeing Ali, Alexandra and Rose as their sisters.

MacG (1:08:02):

The last time you spoke to Maye, what was happening? What were you guys talking about the last time you guys spoke?

Errol Musk (1:08:06):

Last time I spoke to Maye was on Thanksgiving night, 2002. And I said that I had just been in South Africa, and the people there are using Herbalife, which is a very good way to lose weight, for losing weight. You go to Herbalife. Have you ever heard of Herbalife? [Herbalife is an American multinational multi-level marketing company.]

MacG (1:08:28):

Yeah, I've heard of Herbalife.

Errol Musk (1:08:29):

So I said, it seems to me they got good products. And Maye was at the Thanksgiving dinner. And she is a dietician. And she said, no, Herbalife is selling very bad stuff.

MacG (1:08:40):

Yeah! That's the last conversation.

Errol Musk (1:08:42):

So anything I said, she said the other, you know, the opposite, you know? So, no, we don't, she never replied to this note that I sent her through my daughter. I said, I don’t know, I finished that, the thing, that note that I sent her about this book stuff. I said to her, I wish I knew what to say, because I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say.

MacG (1:09:03):

So when do you come across your second wife now? Is it Justine? [Her name is Heide Bezuidenhout]

Errol Musk (1:09:07):

Beg your pardon?

MacG (1:09:07):

Your second wife? Who's your second wife?

Errol Musk (1:09:10):

Yes. What about her?

MacG (1:09:11):

When do you come across her?

Errol Musk (1:09:12):

No, no. Afterwards in Pretoria, the boys and I lived out on the horse farm for a while, and then we moved through to Pretoria so they could go to Pretoria Boys High [a public high school that draws students from the wealthiest and most politically connected population of Pretoria]. And then I met this girl in Pretoria. Her husband had been killed in a car crash. She was much younger than me. And you know, Heide Marie, and then she's an Afrikaans girl, very nice.

MacG (1:09:31):

Heidi? Heide?

Errol Musk (1:09:32):

Yes. Heide. Heide Marie. And we you know, we got married and, she's wonderful. Very smart, Afrikaans girl. And she's related to Paul Kruger [Boer leader and State President of the South African Republic from 1883 to 1902]. She's very smart, very decent girl. And we have two daughters.

So, you know, like all these marriages, they last for a while, you know?

MacG (1:09:55):

So what happened with this one? Why did you think it came…

Errol Musk (1:09:57):

To, well, you know, you change direction. You know, you lose interest. I don't know. I can't answer that. All I know is that nearly all my friends, the same story, you know? And I've got friends that I went to their weddings back in those days. They married, they were sweethearts and everything. And when you meet them today, they say, oh, no, I've been divorced for 20 years now.

MacG (1:10:20):

And how's your relationship with Heide now? Are you guys still on good terms?

Errol Musk (1:10:23):

Good. Very good. Very good. No, we are very good friends. She stays up. She went to with me to America twice this year. Took her to see the children, to see Ali and Rose. You know, they live in Texas. The two daughters, they live in Texas. So took Heide with me two times this year. Ja, we get on very well.

MacG (1:10:44):

So when you now impregnate her daughter, right?

Errol Musk (1:10:48):

Well, that's a tough way to put it.

MacG (1:10:49):

Yeah.

Errol Musk (1:10:51):

It's a bit harsh.

MacG (1:10:52):

Sorry about that. But I'm saying, what kind of a conversation is that like, 'cause this is her daughter and you guys, well…

Errol Musk (1:10:57):

I don't know. I, they seem to think it's all right. So I don't, I don't…

MacG (1:11:00):

So did you have a chat with her?

Errol Musk (1:11:01):

Yes. Yes.

MacG (1:11:03):

So how, how does that conversation go? Like, like what are you saying?

Errol Musk (1:11:05):

Well, you know Heide and I were divorced in 2004. You know, 20 years ago.

And then in about 2014, her daughter, who I hadn't seen for years. Even when Hedie and I were married her daughter lived with other people, so I never really saw much of her. Her daughter contacted me in about 2014 to say that she's struggling. She's got no money, and she's battling, she's living with some guy in a storeroom, in an old shopping center, you know, poor, you know, really poor. And so I went to, I, she said, can I help her? And I said, well, yes, okay. So, I mean, I went to see her see her, in the Cape area [meaning either around Cape Town or somewhere in Western Cape Province]. Yeah. And I went to this place where, where she was, and she was like, thin, thin, very thin, and terribly poor and everything.

And so then I started helping her with a little bit of money, you know, to buy her some clothes and, and she was already about 29 years old. And then and then I helped her for about two years. Every week I sent her money, you know, for food and, and toiletries, and stuff. And I even gave her, gave them a car, her and her boyfriend a car to use, a secondhand car. And then I, then one day, in about 2016 or so, 2017, she contacted me to say that her boyfriend, I never really saw this guy more than twice. I never seen him more than twice. But he threw her out of the place where they're staying. And she's now on the street, you know? And she's living with, she's got all her clothes, and she's sitting on the street.

So I said to her, she's a very classy girl, but this is what happens to people. So then I said to her, well, you must have, you got the car? She said, yeah, she's got the car. I said, well, put the stuff in the car and come here. You know. So she came through to here where I am, where my daughter was still living with me, Rose, who was still at school, you know. And the two of us were living here. And then, she stayed with us. And then after a while we, when I got on very well, and, you know, we sort of started a relationship.

MacG (1:13:16):

Do you get tired of being asked this question? 'Cause every interview they ask you this question.

Errol Musk (1:13:20):

Well, yes. I mean, it's, I just tell them the same answer because, you know, I don't have to remember anything. 'cause I just tell 'em the truth.

MacG (1:13:27):

What do you think is the fascination around the story?

Errol Musk (1:13:29):

I don't know. I mean, look I never, you know, what happened was we saw, no, she was 30 years old when Rashi [Not clear who this is; he also has a daughter named Asha] was born. Yeah. I mean, 30 years, not young. It's not a chicken any more. You know, it's a grownup woman. And she already had a child. She already had a daughter of eight.

MacG (1:13:47):

Do you think it would've been different if you saw her, like, grow up in front of your eyes? 'Cause You said you met her, which was

Errol Musk (1:13:53):

No, no, no, no. She was a child when I was married to her mother. So when I heard her mother, I never saw her from the time she was about 18, because she went to a school in the Northern Cape. So I never saw her. She was with relatives. And I'm, the last time I would've seen her was when she was about 17, 18, a little bit, you know, and then she, or even younger than that. And then she went to stay with relatives. And for various reasons that's what happened. I, it was something to do with their side of the family. And then I only saw her again when she was about 29.

MacG (1:14:36):

So, and what does your family say? Like all the kids and stuff?

Errol Musk (1:14:37):

Well, you know what they say, I called the boys, as soon as, well, what happened is she came to tell me that she's pregnant.

After she stayed here.

She stayed here for about two, three weeks. And then her and her boyfriend made up. Well, he cried and he said he wants her to come back. So she said, all right, she's going back. So she went back to the boyfriend, the one who had thrown her out.

MacG (1:15:02):

Yes. Yes.

Errol Musk (1:15:04):

So then after about two months, she came to see me. She said, can she come and see me? Because I used to send her money through the bank. I didn't go and give them money. I sent her money. You follow? I never saw her. So then she phoned me and said, can, she was living in Darling [a small town about 75 kilometers / 45 miles from Cape Town]. And then she asked me if she can come and see me. So I said, all right. So she came through here like 60 kilometers [37 miles] away, you know?

So she came through here and she told me that she's pregnant. So I said to her, well, you know, it can't be me, you know? She said, no, it's you. I said, well, how can it be me? She said, well, you the only one that I had a relationship with.

MacG (1:15:40):

Yes, yes.

Errol Musk (1:15:41):

So I said, oh. So then I had a DNA test done, had to have it done in Canada. And then the DNA test came back. Ja. I'm a hundred percent the father of the child, you know? So then you know what was I gonna say?

MacG (1:15:57):

And you've had another kid since then, right? You've got, so you've got two kids?

Errol Musk (1:16:02):

Yes.

So we talk regularly and you know, I mean, we are, you know, still see each other all the time. I provide her with a little house. Yeah. And she's…

MacG (1:16:11):

Is it, is it ever awkward when she's there and your ex-wife is there as well?

Errol Musk (1:16:14):

No. Well, everybody kind of accepted it when, when it first happened, you know. I told the Daily Mail in London, you know, they asked me “What's going on?” I said, “Well, I have this child now with this girl.” So it was in the newspapers all over the world. And then my kids, I told my kids about it. I wrote to them and said, this is the situation. Kimball said, well, you know, it happens. And Elon said, well, he, you know, he's not worried about that. You know, because they're boys, they're not interested, you know? My daughters on the other hand, were kind of shocked, you know, they was more or less like their sister, you see?

MacG (1:16:50):

Yes, yes.

Errol Musk (1:16:51):

So they were like, but anyway, they, when Ali and Rose, they are coming here in four weeks time, so when they come, the first thing they want to do is they want to see her, Yanna, and they want to see the children. And they all go out together. And Alexandra was here six months ago, and they, she, she spends all her time with Yanna and the two children. So, you know, they get on very well.

MacG (1:17:12):

So the fact that you…

Errol Musk (1:17:13):

Just accepted it. ,

MacG (1:17:14):

So the fact that you know, the papers have been writing that you had a fallout with Elon because of this is so that's not true.

Errol Musk (1:17:21):

No, no, no. I had a fallout with Elon because of my support for Trump.

MacG (1:17:28):

Is it? No ways!

Errol Musk (1:17:30):

Ja. In 2016 you know, I started when, when, look, I'm not into wokeness and gayness and transgender stuff, and what these people in America and these Biden and them, and I like a country to be well run. You know, I like a country to be well run. So when they were living in America and Trump started running, I followed Trump's career because he was in the same work as me.

MacG (1:17:58):

Property and all this stuff. Same.

Errol Musk (1:18:01):

Exactly. And you know, he turned the west side of New York City…It used to be old railway yards, you know, really bad places. And he turned that into the most beautiful apartment buildings and malls and everything that you've ever seen in your life. The whole west side of New York.

I mean, he tried, it was so hard for him to do that, but he did it. Anyway, I followed his career and then when he said, he is going to stand for president, I said, no, he's a good man. Elon and Kimbal, they…I started writing and telling people that Trump's a good man. And then, but he was very, Trump was very unpopular with the Democrats.

MacG (1:18:46):

Elon was a Democrat at the time?

Errol Musk (1:18:47):

Well, yes. Because if you go over to America from South Africa and you're a white person, you have to, in those days, you had to not be showing that you are supportive of anything but being like a Democrat. You get away with it better or something like that.

Although, you know, my daughters used to cry because she used to say, used to say that the American girls treat them very bad because they're white girls from South Africa. So I said to my daughter, just ask them, where's the Red Indians? And they won't answer because they killed them all.

So, anyway, so anyway, in 2016, it was my 70th birthday, and Elon and Kimbal came out here. They brought 20 people from America. To Cape Town. And we had a big party in a restaurant in Cape Town for my 70th birthday party. And the people that came were all from Hollywood, all Hollywood actors, and one was a owner of Google. One of the people who started Google.

MacG (1:19:51):

You don't remember these Hollywood actors?

Errol Musk (1:19:53):

Yes. Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Lawrence, Jon Favreau.

MacG (1:20:01):

Those are big boys, huh?

Errol Musk (1:20:02):

Yeah. They'd made this movie called The Jungle Book. Anyway, during that lunch, which lasted for hours Jon Favreau said to me you know, with a big laugh, he said, we believe you support Trump. Yes. So I said, yes, yes, I support Trump. So everybody laughed. Ha ha ha…

MacG (1:20:20):

Ha ha. Yeah.

Errol Musk (1:20:21):

And then they asked me, why do you support Trump? I said, well, I think he's a good, solid businessman. He knows what he's doing. And you know, he's not messing around. And, you know, Trump has more, well, if you want to talk about race things, Trump has more awards for helping poor people and people across the race spectrum.

Errol Musk (1:20:42):

And they said, no, he's a terrible person. I said, no, he's not. Anyway, after the lunch, Elon and Kimbal, I've never seen Kimbal so angry. He said to me, you know, that I've embarrassed them in front of their friends. You know, all that sort of stuff. And Elon said It's evil to support Trump, but he had been brainwashed by these Democrats. Because now Elon supports Trump.

MacG (1:21:07):

Yeah. I mean, the election is happening right now as we speaking. And it looks like Donald Trump might win. And Elon had a big part play in that, you know, especially after he bought X. And yes, he's been campaigning for Trump.

Errol Musk (1:21:20):

Everyone will be better off if Trump wins with these people that are, they pretend these other people, that they're going to do this and this and this. They don't do anything for…

MacG (1:21:28):

So you guys don't speak for seven years because of that night?

Errol Musk (1:21:31):

No, no. We're not speak for seven years. No, no. We just ja, yeah. Well, it, well no, no. It's not that we didn't speak, it is that we were on bad terms, you know? We did speak obviously, birthdays, happy birthday, you know. And happy Christmas. All that sort of stuff. Then I went overseas quite a few times after that, and I would, I saw them a few times. I went overseas and saw Elon a few times after that. And he was never very happy. But now he's very happy.

MacG (1:22:04):

So does he come to you and say, dad, I was wrong. You were right.

Errol Musk (1:22:07):

No, I, never, look, I'm a dad. I don't want to put my kids through such a, where they have to say to me that, sorry, you know, I don't want that. But I mean, obviously from what he's doing, he is, obviously, he should be saying to me something like that, but I don't want that. I would never put him through that.

But the last time I was in America with Elon was in December last year when we launched the rocket in Florida, the big rocket. And after the launch, which was quite successful, then we had a big party for about 250 people, you know, at SpaceX. And then Elon was right in the middle of everything, and then he stopped everybody. And he said, everybody, everybody. And he said, this is my dad, put his arm around me. He said, he's bigger than me now. You know?

MacG (1:22:55):

You guys look the same, by the way. You guys. Identical.

Errol Musk (1:22:59):

Anyway, he said that this is my dad. He taught me everything I know about engineering. Wow. And which is a very nice thing to say, especially at SpaceX. And then I said, no, no, no. I'm sure he taught himself. I said, no he taught himself a lot of things. I replied, you know. But no, no, things are very good.

MacG (1:23:23):

When did you realize he was special? Because every parent knows. Every parent knows.

Errol Musk (1:23:27):

Well, yes. You know, look, Elon as a small boy was very different. No, I wouldn't say he was, I wouldn't say he was very different. He was a typical boy, I mean, a little bit, he wouldn't listen. So, you know, you, after a while, you'd think, can he not hear me or something?

MacG (1:23:48):

Maybe he's deaf in the left ear?

Errol Musk (1:23:50):

But, you know, no. When he was at school, give you an example. You know, when he was in grade two, he was at Waterkloof Primary School [in Johannesburg]. And the principal phoned me and said that I have to come and see him, the principal. So I thought, oh, it must be for Elon. Now, when he was small, he was quite fast on a lot of things. And if adults spoke to him, he didn't hesitate to say, oh, he's stupid or what? He would say to an adult.

And I would say to him afterwards, you can't say that, that's rude. But they are stupid, he'd say. Yes, I know they're stupid, but you mustn't say that. So anyway, the principal asked me to come in and see him. So I thought, oh, he's told his teachers, that his teacher's stupid, you know?

Anyway, so I went in to see the principal, and when I got in there, there was the principal in the room, and this woman was in there, this older woman, she's going like this, you know, she's very unhappy. And I said, what's it? So they said, no, we've got a problem with Elon.

So I said grade two. So I said you know, what's the problem? You know, worrying. Now what? That he said something bad. They said, no, we think he's retarded. That's the word they used. I said, retarded? They said, yes. And then the teacher, I said, what do you mean? So the teacher said, no, he doesn't listen in class. He just looks out the window all the time. He just looks out the window. And then when I talk to him, then he doesn't even respond.He just sits staring out the window. So we think he's retarded.

So I said, really? ‘CauseI knew he wasn't retarded. So the teacher said, yes. I even go up to him and I shake him on the shoulder, and then eventually he turns around, you know, say, what? And, and one time she said yesterday when I shook him on the shoulder, he turned around and he said, the trees are turning green, you know, obviously the spring or something, you know. And so they came to the conclusion, he's retarded. So then we didn't know what to do. We were sitting in the room there, and then finally I wanted to say, look, he's not retarded. And then the principal said maybe he can't hear.

So I said, yeah, no, I don't think, that's it. That's it. So I said, tomorrow I'll take him and we'll have his ears tested. Anyway, there was nothing wrong with his hearing. So what I did was I put him in another, a better school. And then there was no trouble after that. But as a small boy he read very early. He was reading books very early on. So, age nine, he was already reading, especially books about Dungeons and Dragons and you know, all sorts of creepy stuff. He liked that sort of thing. He was reading all that and the Lord of the Rings, you know, that kind of thing. But as far as academics, being very smart, he was okay.

MacG (1:26;44):

Was he, was he bullied?

Errol Musk (1:26:46):

No, that's also another story that's not exactly true. He went to Hatfield Primary School [a Christian private school in Pretoria] with me, no problem at all. And Kimbal, of course, as well, and no trouble at all. Then when he went to high school, we were still staying on the horse farm in Sandton. So I put him into Bryanston High School, and there was some rough characters in Bryanston High School.

And one day I didn't realize Bryanston High School, although Bryanston is in a very good area, it draws people from all over the place. Anyway one day I got this call that Elon's in hospital, and and I went to the school, and apparently some boy there, I was told by the principal, some boy there, his father had committed suicide. And everybody knew.

And then Elon said to this boy, your father was stupid. Now you shouldn't do that. You mustn't do that. You see, because, although I think probably the father was stupid to do that, Elon did that. And so the boy waited until Elon wasn't looking. And then he pushed Elon down a flight of stairs, two flights of stairs. So he went down these stairs, and he was severely injured going down those stairs. And then when he was at the bottom, the boy jumped up on him and, and started hitting him with things. It was really bad. And Elon was in Sandton Clinic for about 10 days, 10 days, two weeks. He was in Sandton Clinic. I've never seen anybody looking so badly hurt. That was all. And then when I went to see the school about it, I went to the police, in fact, and they told me, look, what Elon had said to this boy is too much. You can't say that. And I agreed, you know, and I felt so very sorry for this boy, because when I saw the boy that had pushed Elon down the stairs, he was weeping all the time, you know, crying, crying. And I felt very sorry for this boy. And I said, no, we won't do anything about it.

And then what I decided to do was to move Elon. He was only in standard six [8th grade], then in grade eight, I will take him to school in Pretoria. So I was on good terms with the headmaster of Pretoria Boys High. I said, look, I'll buy a house in Pretoria shortly, and I will bring them to school every day from Sandton to Pretoria Boys, although they're not allowed to do that [because their residence was not zoned for Pretoria Boys High]. But he said, that's fine. So I took them to school in Pretoria every day after that, every day, back and forth, back and forth from Sandton to Pretoria every day. And until about three months later, I managed to buy a house in Pretoria. And then we stayed there afterwards.

MacG (1:29:31):

How was he with the ladies? Because obviously now he's got a lot of baby mamas…

Errol Musk (1:29:36):

Elon is a nerd with ladies.

Errol Musk (1:29:39):

So am I. No, he's not a smooth operator. Not a smooth operator.

MacG (1:29:47):

Are you advising him at this time? Like, hey, man, this is how you speak to a lady. You got to get her some flowers. You got to do this…

Errol Musk (1:29:51):

No, he is not a smooth guy. I think his first wife wrote in her book. She said that when he met her, the first thing he said to her is, do you want to come and watch some science videos at my place? Or something like that. I think, does she want to come and look at some rocket launch? No, he's very, he's not a very, but obviously the woman, the latest girl he’s got is lovely. I mean, Shivon, she's with AI, you know very smart, Indian sort of woman. But she's smart. And that suits him very well I can see. But Elon is definitely not a smooth operator. No.

MacG (1:30:36):

And you guys love kids, man. Don't you know how to use a condom?

Errol Musk (1:30:40):

Nothing like that!

MacG (1:30:42):

You all have so many kids!

Errol Musk (1:30:44):

No, no. Look, you can, you must have, if you, if you could, if you're a dope, don't have kids. But you're not a dope. So you should have lots of kids. So the thing is, if you can afford it, but you mustn't have kids if you can't afford it.

MacG (1:30:56):

Yes, yes, yes. I think for me, it's more about my wife. I don't think my wife would want me to have kids with other…

Errol Musk (1:31:03):

No, no, no, no, no. You must, but no

MacG (1:31:05):

But she doesn't want a lot of kids, though, you see, she doesn't. So I only have two kids, but I'd like to have more, but it's all dependent on her. Do you get what I'm trying to say?

Errol Musk (1:31:12):

Yes, of course. It depends on the woman. But yeah, exactly. But if you can afford it, you should, you should have look, my dad was one of eight kids. My mother was one of eight kids. You follow me? Yeah. Heide Marie is one of eight kids.

MacG (1:31:28):

How many kids do you got now?

Errol Musk (1:31:30):

Seven.

MacG (1:31:31):

Seven. And grandkids?

Errol Musk (1:31:32):

About 20.

MacG (1:31:33):

Wow.

Errol Musk (1:31:34):

Yeah. And Elon's got 12 kids.

MacG (1:31:35):

Wow. Yeah. And he's not stopping. Did you see he moved them all to…

Errol Musk (1:31:39):

Know, again, it's, look, it's not only about whether you can afford them. You do have to have time with your kids. Yeah. So Elon is not happy about the fact that with his first few kids, he, he was too much away. So now he tries to spend more time with the little ones that he's got now. But with the at first kids, he was not, he was not there, you know? Like this one who's declared herself, himself a woman.

MacG (1:32:06):

Yes. Yes.

Errol Musk (1:32:07):

She says, he, he, he wasn't there for her for you. You know,

MacG (1:32:15):

What, what, what's your take on that? 'Cause that's your grandchild at the end of the day.

Errol Musk (1:32:18):

You know, I mean, look, it's not a new thing. It's something that has happened over the years, over many years. You know, it's history, is not full of, not full of it, but it's always been possible. So the thing is I, my advice to him was, and to people, is you should love people for who they are, not for who they were. You know, I mean, basically that's the Christian creed. You take people for what they are, not for what they were, you know?

MacG (1:32:50):

Yeah. That's true.

Errol Musk (1:32:50):

So, I've advised him on that to try. But it's very easy to talk, you know. I had a situation quite recently with someone, now I'm trying to think who it is, where the child, again, it's the same as Elon, where the child claims to be a woman, and, and the fathers, it was in the news, quite a well-known person. And the father said, I can't come to terms with this. You know, I can't come to terms with this. It's understandable.

I mean, I've had women not once, maybe three times at least, where I've had married, when I say women, who are married, who've had sons, who have turned out to be gay. And I remember these women coming to me over the years, coming to me and saying, phoning me and saying, oh, I can think of one phoning me and saying, “Ooh,” a very good friend, woman, friend, saying to me “Oh, oh a terrible thing has happened.” I said, “What is it?”

“Oh, oh, oh!” She's got to talk to me. She's got to talk to me. And I say, “What is it?” And then she comes to see me, and she sits there. And then she said, well she said to me “Jared,” that one, his name's Jared, “Jared is gay.” But I knew he was gay. Everybody knew he was gay.

Everybody knew he was gay and he was already 18 or something, you know? But she didn't know. So I, you say to her, “Look, you know, it's not such a big deal. It's not so serious.” Now, that's a few years ago. Now she's on very good terms with him.

MacG (1:34:30):

I wanted to ask you, do you think Elon's proud of being South African? Because…

Errol Musk (1:34:34):

Oh, yes.

MacG (1:34:35):

For real? I’ve never seen him speak highly of South Africa, like coming from here. Like, he doesn't represent South Africa.

Errol Musk (1:34:44):

You know, remember, he's up against, he's in a bit of an 18 there [meaning unknown]. You only put out everything that's positive that you can, you know what I mean? But no, no, no. They, my daughter wears an Africa. A little gold…

MacG (1:35:02):

Yeah. See something like that. I've never seen Elon wear like an…

Errol Musk (1:35:05):

But she wears it all the time. This is Tosca So, no, no, they all have their, Tosca buys clothes for for children from a place here in South Africa, which she thinks is better stuff. And no, no, no, they, they, Kimbal would like to have a bush farm here again. And no, no, no, no, no, they're very happy with their background, very happy with their background.

And you know obviously they're dealing with Americans when you're in America. And for me, for example, I found you get to America, and someone meets you in your business, and they say you know “Where you from?” You say, “I'm from South Africa.” They go “Africa, South Africa? You're not black?” You know what I mean? Then you have to explain to them, no, South Africa. Or you get some guy who says, “I've got a friend in the Congo, I've got a friend, do you know him?” You know? No, no. You soon learn in America, when they ask you where you from, they mean, are you from up,town, or downtown?

Errol Musk (1:36:05):

You say, “I'm from uptown.” They say, “Oh, okay.” So eventually you simply just, if they push you a lot, then you say “I’m British.” And then they say, “Oh, okay.” But generally, they're not interested, in America, in the outside world, you know.

MacG (1:36:20):

Do you think he'd come back to SA [South Africa], like maybe in the future, like Elon to come back here? And live here. 'Cause he could buy the whole country, you know, he's got so much money.

Errol Musk (1:36:28):

No, no. He could, but, you know, it's not that. It's where his interests lie. I mean he's been back here quite a few times. And when they come back here, they immediately go to the bush and they enjoy the place. I mean they come secretly because they get special private treatment.

MacG (1:36:47):

Yes, yes, yes, yes,

Errol Musk (1:36:48):

But ja, no you know, it's a question of what they need, what their needs are.

MacG (1:36:57):

Because he could be very comfortable chilling here. No noise…

Errol Musk (1:37:01):

I don’t think Elon is in a position right now to, to even give the slightest concern to where he's going to live one day. Because remember, a lot of these other guys are buying nice yachts or nice this or nice that. But he is busy as though he is 30 years old. He's 53, but he's like building rockets to go to Mars.

This is one of his shirts he gave me. Recently. So I thought I'd put it on.

And they busy now, recently, the rocket they want to send to Mars, I don’t know if you saw they caught it.

MacG (1:37:38):

Extraordinary. Yes.

Errol Musk (1:37:40):

Unbelievable.

MacG (1:37:40):

Amazing.

Errol Musk (1:37:40):

Yes, it is. unbelievable. That thing is about the height of a 30 story building.

MacG (1:37:46):

What's happening there in Mars? Why does Elon wanna go to Mars so bad?

Errol Musk (1:37:50):

Well, you know,it's about, look, we all sort of feel like we are responsible. Not only us. I mean, everybody does. You feel like you're responsible for to do a good showing in your life. To not be a, a failure. You know? YSo he's taken upon himself to, to go to Mars. He's going to put people on Mars. He, and came to the idea after he sold PayPal, and he didn't know what to do with himself, you know? And he wasn't sure what to do. So he joined the Mars Society in 2002, and when he went to join the Mars Society, he thought it’s very exciting. 'Cause these people were very serious. And they were, they actually had people who were pretending to live on Mars.

Errol Musk (1:38:36):

Oh, wow. And then they would go and live in the desert and pretend that they're living on Mars, you know, seriously, you know, to see if they couldn't pretend properly. And Elon was very impressed with this. So he immediately gave the Mars Society a hundred thousand dollars. In 2002. Robert Zubrin, the Mar Society. And he became like in love with the idea, you see? And so then he said, he's going to launch a rocket. He's going to build a rocket. And then he went to try and buy one from Russia, then eventually built his own rockets. And today he's the most, the only viable rocket launching facility in the world.

MacG (1:39:13):

Insane.

Errol Musk (1:39:14):

No one else. He's launched. 90% of all satellites that have ever been launched since 1960 have been launched by Elon. 90%.

MacG (1:39:24):

This is your son?

Errol Musk (1:39:25):

Yes. And so he's spending his money. He started Starlink with the idea that the income from Starlink, which he estimated in 2016, he told me that they anticipate income from Starlink because it’s wifi for the world, they anticipate income from Starlink to be $80 billion a year. 80 billion. That was in 2016. I think now it'll be more. And he wants to use that money to finance the trip to Mars.

MacG (1:39:54):

And we don't even have Starlink in SA [South Africa]?

Errol Musk (1:39:56):

Well, yes. No, not yet. The government is trying to decide who's going to get the license. So that's in the process of happening. But Starlink is available just about everywhere else. In 179 countries now.

MacG (1:40:11):

That's amazing.

Errol Musk (1:40:13):

So he's pushing himself still like a young man, you know? And I don't think he gives much thought to where he goes on holiday and stuff. I think he's giving more thought to being with his children, though.

MacG (1:40:16):

How old is he?

Errol Musk (1:40:26):

53

MacG (1:40:27):

Okay. Okay. He's still a youngster.

Errol Musk (1:40:28):

Now, Kimbal, my other son, his brother, he believes he must teach everybody how to grow vegetables.

Because on my smallholding, he learned how to grow, on my horse farm. He learned how to grow vegetables. So we used to grow pumpkins, carrots, lettuce, onions, everything. Spinach, cabbage, everything.

MacG (1:40:48):

Weed, everything.

Errol Musk (1:40:29): Everything. And he learned that. And then, so since he's been in America, he's been teaching, he's opened a lot of restaurants, and he also teaches children in schools. He's got gardens in 1,200 schools now teaching children how to grow vegetables. Primary school children.

MacG (1:41:05):

Are your other kids jealous of Elon's success?

Errol Musk (1:41:09):

No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No. He's too good to them. You know. My daughter owns PassionFlix, you know? So, passion Flick is like Netflix only the movies are love stories. Yes. But full length movies. So she's made a couple of hundred, I think, I think they've made a couple hundred movies already. She's got full big studios in Atlanta, in, in America. She's got huge studios with all the rooms and bedrooms and all the stuff that you guys normally use for making movies. She makes a new movie every, roughly every six weeks to three months, a new movie's coming out. And you can subscribe to PassionFlixs. But in order to get PassionFlixs off the ground, of course, Elon provided the funding for her.

MacG (1:41:53):

So when you speak, I just can't fathom this, I can't understand, like, it sounds like, you know, his childhood is great. You guys have a good bond. So why would he go on an interview and say things like you are the most evil man he's ever met , every possible evil deed you have done. I don't get why he'd go on an interview and say that based on what you are telling.

Errol Musk (1:42:13):

Me. Well, first of all, that's a Rolling Stone magazine. And I think they got Elon at a bad time or something. But anyway, he, it was the time of the Trump saga, you see.

[Elon Musk said, according to Rolling Stone:

“He was such a terrible human being,” Musk said at the time. “You have no idea… 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,” he added before tears ran down his face. “It’s so terrible, you can’t believe it.”]

MacG (1:42:29):

And he did say that at the lunch…

Errol Musk (1:42:31):

And remember for Elon, the people that he was mixing with in America at that time, he doesn't talk to those Hollywood people anymore. In fact, those Hollywood people that came with him to Cape Town that time, they say terrible things about him all the time now. That he's, that he's no good.

Long time now, when Elon bought Twitter, they're saying, Elon is no good. Those same people, they’re no good themselves, those Hollywood, Hollywood people. But around the time that Trump came into power, yeah. Remember for Elon to say in 2017, 2016, 2017, that he supports Trump is like a death knell for him. With the Democrats there in America. Then he loses all his friends…

MacG (1:43:19):

Even now he says, no, if Trump doesn't win, he might go to jail?

Errol Musk (1:43:22):

Yes. So, the thing is at that time, Elon was trying to distance himself from me. You see, because people were asking me at that time, also on the news, what do I think? So he was trying to distance himself. And the best way he could do that was to say, I suppose, because they asked, Rolling Stone phoned me, and they said to me, what do I say to this? And I said, well, I've never in my life tried to harm anybody. So I don't know why he's saying that.

So but, you know you, you, it's the rough with a smooth, you just take it as it comes.

MacG (1:44:00):

So what are some of the other misconceptions about you? Like, what do you think, people like, don't get it.

Errol Musk (1:44:08):

Well, you know, I don't really think much about myself. I don't care what people, well, no, of course, I like people to like me or something. But I don't have any, I haven't got a conscience. So if I felt bad, I would walk around. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But I haven't done anything that I could say that about, so, no, no, no. The problem is their problem, not my problem. It's their problem, nN=ot mine

MacG (1:44:30):

And you're not even on social media, so you don't even see the stuff.

Errol Musk (1:44:33):

No, I do look on social media. I was on X. I just don't look at X much these days. Everybody else does. I don't use it much. And no, I haven't got much to say on things like that. I don't have to, because the news people ask me all the time, what's my opinion? And then it goes on the news. So yesterday I was on news in England, you know? Tonight also in London. On TV.

MacG (1:45:01):

For the elections? Who do you want to win? Obviously Trump?

Errol Musk (1:45:07):

Well, look, I think Trump is a businessman. I mean, he's a proper person. He's not, you know, recently England has voted in a new government and their solution to England's problems. England's got a lot of problems because people are hotly buying anything out of England nowadays. Remember we used to buy everything out of England. So, you know, you very young. But the thing is, when I was a young guy, everything we bought came from England.

MacG (1:45:33):

Now it's China.

Errol Musk (1:45:34):

Yes. But everything used to come from England. Even the drink that you're drinking. Even breweries. Everything came from England. The cars we drove all came from England. Everything came from England. Now we buy nothing from England. So, what's happened, England is down. And now this new government with this guy Starmer, they’re increasing the taxes out of, out of sight. They're going mad on taxing everybody. They introduced the capital gains tax now to like 50% of, if you sell your house, you have to give 50% to the government.

MacG (1:46:08):

That's madness.

Errol Musk (1:46:09):

It's madness. And now they think you can tax yourself out of poverty. But as you know, taxing yourself out of poverty is like, you, you are hard up and you are living on your mother's savings.

So now you're a guy and you hard up and you start living on your mother's savings account. It's not sustainable. That's the same as taxation. No. You have to work your way out of poverty. You cut costs, and you work your way out of poverty.

So the kind of people, and I'm sure that's a lesson in that. And these people in America, that Biden and them, they also want to tax everybody. You don't tax people. You get people to produce more and make more. Trump is someone who will get people to work their way out of difficulty instead of taxing. You can't tax your way out of the difficulty.

MacG (1:46:57):

Have you been following the elections? I think he's gonna win eh?

Errol Musk (1:47:01):

I don't know. You know, anything's possible there with the way things happen. I mean, with obviously, cheating and all that kind of stuff, I don't know. But it would be better if he wins. It would be better for everybody. Better for South Africa.

MacG (1:47:16):

I want to play a game with you, on a lighter note. It's called “When Last.” So first question is: When last did you cry?

Errol Musk (1:47:27):

When last did I cry? It was quite recent.

MacG (1:47:28):

For real?

Errol Musk (1:47:31):

Oh, I saw my son Rashi sing and conduct an orchestra. Oh, I wanted to cry. Two tears. Yeah.

MacG (1:47:46):

You strike me as someone who doesn't cry that much, right?

Errol Musk (1:47:48):

Quite recently. I I took a video of it. I'd love to show it to you. You see a 7-year-old.

MacG (1:47:56):

Seven years old!

Errol Musk (1:47:59):

Yeah.

MacG (1:48:00):

Jesus. Your genes are crazy. Eh? The Musk gene are insane. Eh?

Errol Musk (1:48:05):

Well, he's quite smart. I mean, but we are all smart, you know, we are all smart. You just gotta find it.

MacG (1:48:10):

When last did you have sex?

Errol Musk (1:48:14):

Well, let's be honest. Last night!

Speaker 3 (1:48:22):

My man!

MacG (1:48:26):

So you're still rocking. You can still get it up!

Errol Musk (1:48:29):

I wish!

MacG (1:48:32):

When last did you read a book?

Errol Musk (1:48:34):

Oh, I read books all the time. So I'm,= writing my own book. So, no, Iread a book every week. You know,

MacG (1:48:42):

Last book you read?

Errol Musk (1:48:44):

The last book I've read again is a reread of Turning Wheels by Stuart Cloete (a historical novel published in 1937 about the Afrikaans settlers who trekked into the South African hinterland in ox wagons.)

MacG (1:48:49):

And what's your book gonna be about? Like your life or…

Errol Musk (1:48:52):

Oh, it's about history, ancient history.

It's about Middle Eastern history. Yeah. It's very pertinent in today's world, actually. It's about history in ancient Egypt. But it includes people and it's got characters. So it's an interesting book.

MacG (1:49:11):

You give me a brief description about South African history? Like from what, you know, South African history?

Errol Musk (1:49:17):

South African history? Yeah, well, I was a serious history student, so I was A [grade at school] in history, history is very important to me. So you can ask me just about anything on most history.

South African history is very interesting in the sense that this country was the first in many, many things. You know, many of them are the things that the rest of the world, only just experiencing, this country experienced already 200 years ago, 100 years ago, 150 years ago.

You know, in terms of race involvement, clashes you know, all that kind of thing. We are way ahead of the rest. In many ways, this country's way ahead of the rest of the world. In experience, you know? So you know, a rundown of history of South Africa is in many ways the meeting of two cultures. You know, the black culture coming one way, and the white culture coming the other way. It's a fascinating, and in a country that could really be called a Garden of Eden, you know, this country, I don’t know, when last you drove through, you know, the, the Free State [central South African province].

MacG (1:50:25):

All the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All the time.

Errol Musk (1:50:26):

It's like heaven.

MacG (1:50:28):

Yeah, yeah. There's no place like it. And, you know, you need to travel to appreciate it.

Errol Musk (1:50:33):

Yeah, that's right. You need to travel.

MacG (1:50:34):

And a lot of South Africans don't travel that much.

Errol Musk (1:50:35):

You go to Texas, everything looks like it's dead.

MacG (1:50:40):

But one thing that I never understood, right. And maybe I can ask you this, is how did a minority, like white people take over a majority, black people? Like, how did that happen? Because like, you guys, it's like 3% of you, and it's like 90% of us,

Errol Musk (1:50:56):

Well, I don't think that's a correct way to put it. No I think that the culture that came down, kept to themselves. I mean, if you look at the Xhosa and the Zulu people, they stayed where they were. They never, they, nothing's really much changed there. Zululand is Zululand, Xhosaland is Xhosaland. So the white people came to the Cape, which was more or less occupied by, by a small group of people the Khoi and the the Bushmen and so on [Bushmen is generally frowned on in South Africa now in favor of the word San, and the peoples Musk is referring to are usually called Khoisan]. They were very small in number. So they formed their little society, and, and the agreements generally were that they'll form their society and, and the black people will form their society. But you must remember that the Transvaal area [the former province at the center of which is Johannesburg], what we call the Transvaal, or used to call the Transvaal, the table land, was actually the hunting grounds of the Zulu nation, you know?

So the black tribes that lived in the Transvaal area in the 1700s, 1800s, they were very sparse.

And they, and they used to the, the, like, for example, reading about the Sekhukhune, they never built anything because they knew that the impis [Zulu armies] were coming from the Zulus. So if they built anything, the Zulus could see. And then they would come there and kill them. So they would live in caves in the mountains, in the eastern Transvaal. And they would hide when the impis came. It was common knowledge that, that the impis would come up from Zululand, and they would run through, rush through, go through the Transvaal, what we call the Transvaal now, or used to call, and they would take out everybody. So it was an empty country. It was empty countryside really.

Only up in the north where you come from,was there, but that was beyond a mountain. And so the Zulus left that, but the Zulus used to basically rampage around the rest. And so you take the people, the Sotho, they went up into Lesotho, into Lesotho, in the mountains, also to get away from the Zulus. You know, and so the Zulus were sort of of bad guys. They were bad guys, so, well, let's say bad, bad guys, they loved going around having a good time!

Errol Musk (1:53:20):

The first chapter of, I was telling you now, I was reading Stuart Cloetes book. The first chapter of Stuart Cloete book. It's quite interesting now that you mentioned, it's very pertinent. Because he talks about the “turning wheels.” These are the wagons that went up on the Great Trek [the movement of Afrikaans settlers from the Cape into the interior of South Africa]. And the meeting of the two different groups of people and so on. And when the Trekkers, the Voortrekkers [the Afrikaans settlers], the first Trekkers in his book came into the area, which is now, I suppose the northern Free State, they had some of their cattle stolen, and they realized the cattle had been stolen from a black group of black people that they sent out scouts. And they found their, in the far away place, they found, ah, there's their cattle. And it's with these black people who'd come and pinched their cattle, you see?

Which is an old age thing, you know, pinch other people's cattle all over the world, you know. But at any rate, so the Voortrekkers, they put together, they started training and they got together a little group to form a commando. So they're going to go and get their cattle back, you see. So after about two months, they were ready to go and pinch their cattle back from these guys, you see, who took the cattle. And then when they got there, and they looked from the mountains to first check where these people were in the hills there, they saw everybody was dead. Couldn't understand it. Everybody was dead. And then they went in there and they saw the Zulus had come through there and killed everybody. That's in his book.

It's a real event. So you understand, gives you an idea of how things were in those days.

MacG (1:55:05): Were they similar to Vikings, would you say?

Errol Musk (1:55:07):

The Zulus were, I suppose like the Vikings, ja, very much. And so they, that was the black people fighting each other. I mean, well, not fighting each other. Zulus just killed everybody. 'Cause they were so strong.

You know, and I mean, if you look at the people in Zimbabwe, was it Mzilikazi who left Zulus? He was a general, a Zulu general, and he didn't get on with Dingan or Shaka, maybe Shaka, maybe Dingan, I can't remember. But I think it was Shaka.

And he took his group and went into the Transvaal, and eventually Shaka and them chased him. But they eventually went up into Rhodesia [the colonial name for ZImbabwe] where they found another black group. But they formed a new black group with the other black group in Zimbabwe. Which today has still got those two groups, the Matabele [nowadays often the Northern Ndebele people] and the other one, I don’t know who the other ones are, the Shona or something.

MacG (1:55:50):

Yeah.

Errol Musk (1:55:51):

You know, so you've got two different black communities in Rhodesia in Zimbabwe today. You know, that's because one group came from the Zulus.

And so there has been war and a strife and fighting situation for a long time.

MacG (1:56:08):

And Shona and Venda are very similar, like the languages. When I hear someone speak Shona I'm like, that sounds, yeah. So maybe you might be from that tribe as well.

Errol Musk (1:56:17):

I mean yeah. But I mean, history is playing itself out as we speak, you know, it's still going on. You talk bout the history of South Africa. It's playing out as we speak, you know, as we speak. It's happening.

MacG (1:56:33):

Beautiful man! Before you go have you been to the Playboy Mansion? Did you ever go?

Errol Musk (1:56:39):

No!

MacG (1:56:40):

Because I know you like the Playboy magazine, right?

Errol Musk (1:56:43):

No. Where do you get that from?

MacG (1:56:44):

You you never liked it?

Errol Musk (1:56:45):

No, I used to. I mean, in the times gone by, if you had a Playboy magazine, they, they put you in prison or something, they arrest you. [Enforcement of South Africa's pre-1994 obscenity and pornography laws was very strict; possession of banned materials could result in fines and imprisonment.]

But in my young days, if some guy had a Playboy magazine, everybody goes to go look at it. So you go and have a look, you know? And no, but I've, you couldn't buy them in South Africa. When it was against the law, you know?

MacG (1:57:10):

Mr. Errol Musk, thank you so much for your time, man. We've been working on this interview for how long now Dudu [off camera producer]? About a year. And it finally happened. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for inviting us to your house. Before we go, we always like to ask our guests this: So when it's all said and done, at the end of the day, what do you wanna be remembered as?

Errol Musk (1:57:29):

What do I want to be remembered as? Are you, you think, are you telling me I'm gonna die?

MacG (1:57:33):

No, no, no, no, no. We don't want that, man. We wanna come back and shoot more episodes.

Errol Musk (1:57:38):

No, I mean I, I, I suppose we all want to be remembered as somebody who tried your best, you know? And that you are liked, I suppose, you know, or not disliked, I suppose, you know? Yeah. But no, that's, I don't really think about it much like that, but obviously try to leave the people behind happy, you know?

MacG (1:58:01):

I wanted to ask you what's it like being the father of the richest man in the world?

Errol Musk (1:58:07):

Well, I've been asked that question a lot, and it's important to remember that I also did well.

MacG (1:58:15):

Yes.

Errol Musk (1:58:16):

And even if you take my brother, we, I have one brother, and he also comes from this poor family, and he, he only got was, he studied medicine, but the only reason he was able to study medicine is because Norristown Laboratories [unknown company] gave him a scholarship. Otherwise he wouldn't be a specialist today. So we, we all, he got that because he was a very good student at school. He studied hard at school, and we all finished school with a lot of A's. Like his two sons. His two sons who work for X now. James and Andrew. They are the highest ranking people who finished matric [the final high school graduation examinations] in South Africa and the history of South Africa. They both have twelve A's. Twelve distinctions in matric. Can you imagine getting twelve distinctions in matric?

MacG (1:59:07):

I couldn't even get one.

Errol Musk (1:59:08):

They got twelve each. His two sons, they were in the newspapers here as the highest ranking. That's my son. My brother's sons, they work for Twitter now, for X. So we are people who've, who've always tried, you know, we tried, I mean, I've, we don't splurge money around, so I don't see money being thrown around or anything like that, you know? But I do see that if I go overseas or if I go to places that people treat us very well. That I see. Treat us very, very well.

MacG (1:59:46):

Dudu, any last question?

Dudu (1:59:47):

I heard that your second wife, your ex-wife, Heide, would like to get back together with you? Obviously it's weird now.

MacG (2:00:00):

For real?! Why do they all want to get back together with you!

Errol Musk (2:00:01):

That's true. She often wants to get back. She asks me regularly and I say, well, I’ll think about it. But we talk all the time, you know, and we spent four weeks together in July, which is just the other day. It's so quickly going past, but anyway. Oh, six weeks actually, we went to America. But no it's true. That is true. She asks me all the time.

Dudu (2:00:29):

Really? And you wouldn't do it. 'Cause obviously now you have two kids with her [“daughter” left unsaid].

Errol Musk (2:00:33):

It's not that I don't do it. I just say, well, things are okay the way they are. We have supper once a week. You know, and dinner. I mean, we go out for dinner once a week. And so there's no pressure. You know. There's no pressure.

MacG (2:00:48):

Are you dating currently or are you seeing someone?

Errol Musk (2:00:53):

No, no, no. I don't date anybody.

MacG (2:00:54):

Just vibes. Just vibes yeah?

Errol Musk (2:00:59):

No, no. Every time I go to the shops and I see people, I think I'll date her, I’ll date her [points in different directions]

No, no. I'm too, you know. No, I don’t. I don't get the opportunity to do that. But I'm very busy all the time, so, but it's nice to be in a relationship, but it's very nice to be in a relationship.

MacG (2:01:18):

I wanted to tell you we did a podcast with Rob Hersov [billionaire South African entrepreneur and investor: corporate bio here, Wikipedia bio in Afrikaans here], I don't know if you know him.

Errol Musk (2:01:22):

I've seen him.

MacG (2:01:23):

So we did a podcast with him and I asked him for Elon's number because we were in America earlier this year. So we wanted to schedule an interview with Elon. So he sent me the number. But it doesn't work, man.

Errol Musk (2:01:28):

No you can’t.

Errol Musk (2:01:29):

So I don't know if this is the real number. I tried to get a hold of him. Nothing. Sent an email. Nothing. This is the number I have. Just check it there. I don't know if this is the correct number.

MacG (2:01:47):

Can you see it there?

Errol Musk (2:01:48):

No. Just changing.

MacG (2:01:50):

Let me show you. There we go. Can you see the number?

Errol Musk (2:02:00):

Oh.

MacG (2:02:00):

Do you know this one?

Errol Musk (2:02:02):

Oh, that's SpaceX's number.

MacG (2:02:04):

That's not Elon's number.

Errol Musk (2:02:10):

That is a number for SpaceX. That's a switchboard. It's SpaceX.

MacG (2:02:17):

Oh fuck! I got the wrong number!

Errol Musk (2:02:20):

I could give you Elon’s number. But the trouble is Elon would get thousands of calls.

MacG (2:02:26):

Yeah, of course, of course, of course.

Errol Musk (2:02:28):

Yeah. And as it happens if you ask me as a father, what I'm concerned about, he's 53, you know, it's not young anymore. Yeah. And the pressures that he has are, are terrible.

MacG (2:02:38):

I can only imagine, eh.

Errol Musk (2:02:40):

Terrible.

MacG (2:02:40):

But if we go to America, would you be able to link us up with him for, like an interview or something?

Errol Musk (2:02:44):

Yes, I can ask. I can ask. I can ask. I linked up him with an interview for people from Australia in August. I could ask, I can only ask.

MacG (2:02:57):

That'd be amazing, eh, to chat to Elon. That'd be insane.

Errol Musk (2:03:02):

No, no. You should ask me and then I'll ask.

MacG (2:03:04):

Yeah, yeah.

Errol Musk (2:03:05):

You know, make a nice request and then I'll pass it over.

MacG (2:03:07):

Yeah, definitely. No, I'll let you know next time we go to America, then we can set it up.

Errol Musk (2:03:11):

You probably have to go there.

MacG (2:03:13):

Definitely.

MacG (2:03:16):

Can we use your jet?

Errol Musk (2:03:18):

Use his jet?

MacG (2:03:18):

Your jet.

Errol Musk (2:03:20):

Actually, I've got an airplane, but it wouldn’t make America. It's too far. But no seriously, you should ask me. I'm sure he would like, quite frankly, as I sit here now, I think he would love to give an interview to black television, if I can put it like that. In South Africa.

MacG (2:03:38):

Yes, yes, yes., because he really does that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent.

Errol Musk (2:03:42):

I think he'd really like that. I'm sure he'd give that one a lot of thought.

MacG (2:03:46):

No, we'll chop it up. I wanted to say, so what does your life look like now? Like, you wake up and what are you doing? Like are you still working, business or just?

Errol Musk (2:03:54):

I've got a lot of companies that I'm a director of. And we have a lot of you know, every day there's something new, new things. We're also trying to get Starlink. We have a license for Starlink for South Africa. But we are trying to you know, get the ICASA license [permit from South Africa’s regulator of broadcasting, electronic communications, and postal services]. And we are, you know, I'm busy with, I'm supposed to go to Dubai in two weeks time. And because they also want us to get involved with data centers, you know, so I’m busy all the time. And in fact, it's tiring. It's very tiring. And I don't get enough rest.

MacG (2:04:29):

I thought you'd be like retired. You know. Just chilling.

Errol Musk (2:04:34):

Tonight I have to be up all through the night for this election, you know? [The podcast was apparently recorded on the day of the U.S. election, November 4, 2024. It was uploaded to Youtube and other channels on November 14, 2024.]

MacG (2:04:39):

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I just wanted to say thank you so much. I know you're tired of doing interviews. Dudu was telling me that like, you don't like interviews anymore 'cause they ask you the same thing.

Errol Musk (2:04:49):

No, I don't mind. I mean, it would be wrong of me not to give interviews, because first of all, if I don't give interviews, then the wrong information goes out there. And I think people are entitled to know. And I think people want to know. I mean, if you consider that, if Elon had to spend only the money he made last month, it'll take him twelve hundred years. If you spent a million dollars a day.

MacG (2:05:13):

Geez, I never thought about it like that.

Errol Musk (2:05:16):

Twelve hundred years from now he would finish! So that's a lot of, so, so the thing is, you know, I was talking to people in England last week on Times Television [unclear what he is referring to], and they're not very nice. They talk to South Africans as though we are second class or something. But at any rate, this woman was talking to me, and, I could hear, she was like salivating at the thought of how much money Elon made last month, which was about $40 billion. And I could hear just from the way they're talking, you know, that they think wrongly about us, you know? So it's better to try and illustrate to them.

MacG (2:05:59):

Does he send you money? He doesn't send you money?

Errol Musk (2:06:01):

No, he does. It's in a big room down here!

No, no. I have, I have my own income. But if I need anything, they help me, you know?

MacG (2:06:13):

Yeah, of course. Of course.

Errol Musk (2:06:13):

But mostly I'm concerned that they help the other children. You know, Rose is still a student. And so on. So if they help the other children, it's good for me. You know?

And so one of the children of the, that's not really related to Elon is going for teeth fixing. And that's expensive today. And that's all being paid from overseas.

MacG (2:06:38):

Have you ever been with a black woman? Did you ever date a black woman before?

Errol Musk (2:06:41):

Yeah. Every day. No, no, no. Actually, funny, I had a, when I was in Zambia, I went to meet HH, the president of Zambia [Musk is probably thinking of Kenneth Kaunda, nicknamed KK, who was the first president of Zambia, from 1964 to 1991, after independence from British rule.]

And I met a girl there and she was ex Miss Zambia. And we went out a few times. And then she still communicates with me. And she's very, very attractive. Very good looking. She's not that young anymore. She's about 32 or something now, but when she was 21 or something, she was Miss Zambia. So I've got a picture on my phone I could show you. But anyway, so I enjoyed her company a lot. But in Zambia, you know, it's like everything goes, you know? Lekker [Afrikaans and South African slang for pleasant / relaxing] there.

MacG (2:07:29):

How beautiful are South African women? I feel like we've got the best women in the world, eh? We can find any kind here.

Errol Musk (2:07:39):

A while back, when Zuma [president of South Africa from 2009 - 2018 who has been accused, indicted and somehow escaped real punishment for massive corruption, rape etc.] was still around.

I was invited by, I thought it was Zuma, but it was his brother, to go to Michelangelo Hotel in Johannesburg.

They wanted, I don't know what their plan was at the time, whether they were going to ask for a donation or what. But anyway, I went to this function for the sort of Zuma ANC, whatever it was [After years of difficulties with other leaders of the ANC party, Zuma was expelled from the ANC in July 2024 after starting a new party in December 2023].

And I spent, I stayed, they put me up at the Michelangelo, and I went to this cocktail party, which started at about half past four, five, at the Michelangelo for the evening. And it was fantastic, a tremendous place, the Michelangelo. And there were all these people, all black people, you know, some white people, and then there was some incredibly beautiful black women. I mean, really good looking. And I actually phoned…

MacG (2:08:29):

We call them slay queens. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Errol Musk (2:08:30):

But I battled to get a chance to speak to them, because every time I tried to speak to them, I was sort of pushed out of the way, you know, come here, come here.

Anyway, everybody got a little bit, drinking a bit. After a while, then, I was able to go and sit with them. So I sat with them. The one had came second in Miss South Africa at Sun City [a casino and resort]. And the other one had been an Olympic high jumper. Nomsa, I think her name was.

And so attractive. I couldn't believe that people could look so good. \ And I I liked the way they were dressed with sort of jungle print dresses, you know? And you know, that yellow, yellow and green, you know, it's beautiful. The one, anyway, and I phoned my wife, my ex-wife, Heide, and I said to her, you know, I'm up here and I'm, you can't believe how beautiful these girls are.

And I phoned my brother, I said, he lives there nearby in Sandton. I said to him, you must come to the hotel. And come and see these people. And you can't believe it. I told him, these are such beautiful people. And anyway, they didn't come, but, yeah, that's my experience. And they were very nice.

MacG (2:09:40):

Did you ever cheat during your marriages?

Errol Musk (2:09:43):

Oh, no. Every day. With Maye!

MacG (2:09:46):

I mean, you are a good looking guy. Really.

Errol Musk (2:09:50):

No, no, no. With me. No, no, no, no, no. Could never, I could honestly say as a married man, I was I mean, I, I probably showed too much attention to some people's, some other guy's wives, than I should have. But I never cheated because, with Maye, I mean, she was like a detective, she was like Sherlock Holmes. If she, if you cheated, she's too clever, she would know, you know?

MacG (2:10:15):

I don't believe him. Do you believe him, Dudu? I mean, look at his face. He was young. He had money. He had a yacht.

Errol Musk (2:10:22):

Anyway, I loved Maye, I loved her very much. But now you take Heide. Heidei is an Afrikannas girl. Afrikaans girls, if you cheat them <laugh>, they don’t play around. They don't cry. They hit you.

So good story. Heide, when I first was going out with her, I took her to America to meet my family. Yeah. And we arrived in Portugal, and Kimbal was with us, and we went out to I one night in a very nice restaurant in Lisbon [Musk may be confused, or he just doesn’t explain that there are not a lot of direct flights between South Africa and the U.S., so they may have stopped in Lisbon on the way to the U.S.] . But it's a very big restaurant, and it had a big entrance hall, and people all eating on the side, you see? It’s apparently the most famous restaurant in Lisbon. So we went in, and as I walked in, just quite a few years ago, I looked, and the Portuguese women can be very beautiful. They have this black hair, straight black hair, and these blue eyes. And these white faces, you know, so they looked, so there was this woman sitting there. I looked at her and she looked at me, and, and I'm looking at her. Then I bump into Heide. She's in front of me. She's in front of me. Boom. I bump into her. Meantime, Heide’s turned around. She's standing like this. She says to me, if you want her, go and get her.

MacG (2:11:43):

Just like that! Did you ever, did you ever dabble in drugs back then, like cocaine and stuff like that?

Errol Musk (2:11:54):

No fortunately, I've always been a bit crazy by myself. I don’t need…

MacG (2:11:57):

Ah, you don't need, you don't need drugs, just alcohol here and there.

Errol Musk (2:12:02):

No. You know, as, as one of my good friends said, you know, there are three bad habits. Well, he used to say that, he was a very fantastic guy, was a head boy at Michaelhouse [an elite private boys boarding school founded in 1896]. He used to say to me, there are three bad habits, you know, and he, he, he doesn't have two of them. So he can go wild on the third one, which is the women, you know? So he doesn't take alcohol, alcohol and cigarettes or something? And then he goes on the women. No, no. I mean, we all try our best to, to look good, you know, look good.

But getting married and you having affairs outside your marriage, that's crazy.

MacG (2:12:37):

It's so normalized now. It's so normalized.

Errol Musk (2:12:42):

No, it can't work. No. For women, it can't work. Maybe for men, it’s all right. But women don't, can't handle that.

MacG (2:12:49):

But we call it African culture isithembu [polygamy / harem in Zulu]. Elon Musk looks like he's got an isithembu.

Errol Musk (2:12:56):

I don't know about that, but I've never found a woman who thinks it's okay. The men, you know, think it's okay. You know? So, because men are like little boys, you know?

MacG (2:13:08):

But when you're a billionaire, you can have an isithembu, you can afford all of them.

Errol Musk (2:13:12):

Yes. But it's not a good thing. You pay a price later, you know?

MacG (2:13:17):

Okay. Got you.

Errol Musk (2:13:18):

You know, you've got a good woman and you do something like that. She says, I don't want you anymore. Then you're stuck with all the other women, but you haven't got the good woman anymore.

MacG (2:13:26):

Regret. Yeah. I was about to say before you go whenever I watch Elon on TV, he looks very antisocial. Like, he looks like he's a robot. He speaks like a robot.

Errol Musk (2:13:35):

Very good point. I've had a lot of people over the years come to me, and say to me, like, you might come to me if, to Elon's here. And say to me, because now you and I are good friends, and he might say to me, “Elon doesn't like me!”

Then I would say, “No way!” Then call Elon and I'd take you. I'd say, “Max thinks you don't like him. “And then Elon would go, “No, no, no, no.” Because he's not very, he's really a bit autistic, you know? So he is living in his own world and he's not…

Kimbal, on the other hand, if you meet him once, then you think he's your friend for life. ‘Cause he's very personable. So in the time when they first started their business, I remember not once, at least once, but certainly a few times, Elon would speak to the clients, and then Kimbal would come screaming and say, “You don't speak to the clients! I speak to the clients! You don't speak to the clients!

Because if Elon speaks to the clients, they get the wrong idea. But Kimbal, he makes people comfortable and, and all that, you know? So he's got a personality like that. But Elon, he has a personality that looks like he's not with you, you know?

MacG (2:14:49):

Yes, yes, yes, yes. I guess you can't have it all, eh!

Errol Musk (2:14:53):

Well, you know, it's just how he is. In a way it's a bit of a protection for him. Because he gets a lot of flack from the media and people. But he just lets it go. He doesn't worry about it. Doesn't think about it. You don’t reach him.

MacG (2:15:07):

That’s superpower.

Errol Musk (2:15:10):

You don't reach him. So he's not, you know. Some people are very concerned about what people might think of them. And then if they get told so and so thinks this about you, then that person's going to everybody saying, “Hey, they say this about me.” Elon won’t even hear. Won't even listen. And that's quite useful. It's quite useful.

MacG (2:15:27):

Thank you so much once again for your time.

Errol Musk (2:15:29):

Alright.

MacG (2:15:29):

I really appreciate it. I'm not leaving out anything?

Dudu (2:15:32):

No.

MacG (2:15:32):

We done, eh. All right. Podcast and Chill, we’re outta here! Boom!