Errol Musk, 76, father of the billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, is often the missing person in the family photo.
When the CEO of the premium electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla (TSLA) speaks or appears with a member of his family, it is never Errol. Maye, his mother, recently accompanied her famous son to the very popular Met Gala. Brother Kimbal is a shareholder of Tesla, and sister Tosca seems to adore her famous brother.
In a recent interview, Tosca also said that their father physically and verbally abused their mother in front of them when they were children.
Tosca claimed that young Elon had often come between their parents to defend their mother. She also says that Errol had gone so far as to destroy the belongings that their mother had bought for them to get revenge on her for asking for a divorce.
This difficult childhood estranged the father and the son.
Errol Has a Second Child With His 35-Year-Old Stepdaughter
Errol has just gone public with having a second child with his stepdaughter, 35-year-old Jana Bezuidenhout. The child, a girl, was born in 2019. The Musk family patriarch and Bezuidenhout previously had a son, Elliot Rush, who is now 5.
"She looks exactly like Rushi [Elliot] and she behaves like him. So it's pretty obvious you know," the elder Musk told British tabloid The Sun. "She wasn't planned. But I mean, we were living together. She [Jana] stayed here for about 18 months after Rushi was born."
Errol Musk's announcement of his stepdaughter's pregnancy dropped a bombshell on the family. He told The Sun that his daughters were "shocked" by his relationship with Jana.
"And they still don’t like it. They still feel a bit creepy about it, because she's their sister. Their half-sister," Errol said.
He added: "I haven't checked her DNA. But she looks just like my other daughters. She looks like Rose and Tosca mixed up," Errol told the tabloid.
After his divorce from Maye, with whom he was married from 1970 to 1979, the patriarch in 1992 married Heide Bezuidenhout, a widow, originally from South Africa, mother of two children including Jana, who was 4 at the time. The couple divorced after 18 years of marriage and two more children. One of these children is a girl named Rose.
While Errol Musk raised Jana, who is 41 years younger than him, throughout this relationship, she became pregnant in 2017 at age 30. Errol publicly admitted to being the father a year later.
'The Only Thing We Are on Earth for Is to Reproduce'
Errol and Jana no longer live together, but he says there is still a lot of affection between them: "I mean, I would much rather have them here. But Jana came and spent a few days here about six months ago. And the kids were starting to get on my nerves.
"Then I miss them as soon as they have gone."
In his interview, Errol agreed with Elon on one point: The world must have children to limit the decline of the global population. For several months now, Tesla's chief executive, who is 51, has been urging his more than 101.5 million Twitter followers to start or expand their families.
He even promised that he would "significantly" increase child-care benefits at his companies -- Tesla, SpaceX, Boring Co., and Neuralink -- and his foundation plans to donate directly to families.
"The only thing we are on Earth for is to reproduce," Errol Musk told The Sun. "If I could have another child I would. I can’t see any reason not to."
Errol and Elon Musk each have 7 children. Recent reports make clear that Elon Musk's last three children, two twins and a little girl, were born at the end of 2021 to two mothers: Canadian musician Grimes and Shivon Zilis, a senior executive of Neuralink, his company specializing in artificial intelligence.
Outrage on Social Media
The revelations Errol made to the Sun have provoked outrage on social media.
"People are cracking jokes about this story, but it is a blatant example of grooming," one Twitter user commented. "Errol Musk was Jana’s stepfather, raising her from the time she was 4 and having children with her mother. There’s nothing funny about male violence against women and girls."
"This Errol Musk story is really tough to take in. He was 45 and the mother to his step daughter was 25 when they got together. He and the step daughter now have two children together. What a disturbing pattern and reasons why conversations about “grooming” are so important," another user posted.
"I really wish I could go back to 5 minutes ago when I didn’t know about that Errol Musk thing," said another one.
