Elon Musk Says His Dad Is ‘Evil’ — 3 Details About Errol Musk’s Controversial Life
Elon Musk is reportedly a pretty harsh critic of his father.
Anything Goes With James English, Frederic Legrand - COMEO | Wikimedia Commons, Shutterstock Elon catches a lot of flak, a lot of it justified, but maybe some of his criticized behaviors stem from his reportedly tumultuous relationship with his father.
One element of Musk’s past that is largely shrouded in mystery is his father, Errol Musk. Musk’s father is often used as a way to connect Elon to the terrible apartheid regime of South Africa or as a way of detracting from his achievements by suggesting that he came from wealth. As it would turn out, Elon Musk himself isn’t a big fan of the man.
Who is Elon Musk's dad?
While Errol Musk is often brought up as a figure who propped up a younger Elon Musk on Twitter, according to the younger Musk, he is, simply put, a terrible person.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Elon broke down and said of his father, “My dad will have a carefully thought-out plan of evil. He will plan evil." He went on to say, "Almost every crime you can possibly think of, he has done. Almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done. It’s so terrible, you can’t believe it.”
1. Errol Musk fathered a child with his stepdaughter
79-year-old Errol Musk fathered a child with the then 30-year-old daughter of his ex-wife, Jana Bezuidenhout, in 2017.
Errol Musk said that the child was the result of a one-off mistake, saying, “It happened one evening when Jana's boyfriend threw her out of the house, and she had slept over at my house. You have to understand — I've been single for 20 years and I'm just a man who makes mistakes.”
According to TMZ, Bezuidenhout was four years old when her mother married Errol. The couple divorced for the second time in 2005. Errol has since claimed that he fathered a second child with his stepdaughter in 2019, although Bezuidenhout denies it.
Errol has also alleged that he shouldn't be painted as the villain because of his physical relationship with Bezuidenhout, because he had been separated from his stepdaughter’s mother for many years. It's alleged, however, that the deterioration of Elon's relationship with his father stems from the affair.
2. Errol Musk was accused of abuse
Allegedly, in 1993, when she was just 4 years old, Bezuidenhout told a family member that Errol had touched her inappropriately. She accused him again a decade later, saying she caught him sniffing her underthings.
The two threw allegations back and forth regarding inappropriate kissing and fondling incidents after Bezuidenhout was in her 20s, but not before she also accused her former stepfather of sexual assault on both of his biological daughters with Bezuidenhout's mother and her brother.
According to TMZ, "Errol was accused of further abuse in 2022, when his son spoke to family members and claimed his father had groped his behind, although the businessman described the claim as 'nonsense.'" Investigations were opened in both California and South Africa, but Errol was never charged with any crime.
3. Errol Musk was charged with a severe crime
The elder Musk remains somewhat of an enigma, and Elon Musk has said that his words are not to be trusted, but then again, a whole lot of people might say the same about the younger Musk.
According to Errol himself, he never threatened or hurt anyone… Except for the time that he shot and killed three people in 1998, whom he said broke into his home with weapons. He recalled the incident in an interview with The Sun in gory detail. He was later arrested, but the charges were dropped on the basis of self-defense.
While most people might argue that neither Musk is particularly admirable, one saying keeps coming to mind: "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree." What's truth and what's rumor is often hard to decipher, especially in a family as talked about as the Musk's, but when it comes to wealth, scandal, and drama, this family certainly has it in spades.
Dan O'Reilly is a writer who covers news, politics, and social justice.
