While Elon Musk has never failed to find himself under the spotlight for one reason or another, his entire family also does not lag very far behind when it comes to having the limelight to themselves. Currently, as Musk has been making headlines for his involvement with the Donald Trump administration and the underwhelming performance of Tesla, now is a good time to explore some shocking truths about the other members of the Musk family.
Elon Musk’s father, Errol Musk has often found himself to be the center of attention but a lot of times, it was for the wrong reasons. For instance, after Errol Musk’s short-lived marriage with Maye Musk ended after 9 years and 3 children, Errol openly confessed about his infidelity playing a part in their divorce.
In an interview with Business Insider South Africa, Errol Musk said, “I had … a few mistresses on the side, I didn’t quite see the problem. It seemed to be quite reasonable. Looking back, it was stupid.” Besides these affairs, Maye Musk also accused Errol of being abusive towards her when they were married.
In a 2019 interview with Harper’s Bazaar, Maye talked about his abusive husband, saying, “Everybody I knew called him ‘the Pig’ because he treated me so badly in public,” she shared. “And I was too scared to tell anyone [about the deeper violence] … He told me over and over that I was stupid, ugly, boring.”
Besides being quite a terrible husband, as revealed by Maye Musk, Errol was also no great father, as Elon Musk has openly said. In a 2017 Rolling Stone interview, while referring to the time he went to live with his father following Errol and Maye’s divorce, Elon Musk talked about his father, saying, “I didn’t really understand at the time what kind of person he was. It was not a good idea. He was such a terrible human being. You have no idea.”
Another horrible truth about Errol Musk is that he has fathered two children with his stepdaughter, Jana Bezuidenhout. Following his divorce from Maye, Errol married Heide Bezuidenhout, whose daughter, Jana, was then only 4 years old. The couple remained married for 18 years and had two children together.
However, what appeared shocking was that after their divorce, Errol announced that he had fathered a child with Jana, his step-daughter. Errol confirmed the news to The Daily Mail, saying, “I got my 30-year-old girlfriend Jana pregnant and we had a baby, who is now 10 months old.” At the same time, there was significant backlash over this incident, which did not stop Errol from having another child with Jana, whom he claimed never to have seen as a daughter. Talking about Jana, Errol told The Sunday Times, “Jana is a delightful girl and a wonderful mother. She said I had changed her life.”
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While Errol Musk has his share of ugly truths, Elon Musk’s mother also is not someone without controversial actions and opinions. Back in 2024, before the elections, Maye found herself in a rather tricky situation after she made a tweet that looked like she was encouraging voting fraud.
As her son Elon Musk urged everyone to go out and vote for Donald Trump, Maye, in an attempt to take a dig at the Democrats, wrote in a now-deleted post on X, “The Democrats have given us another option. You don’t have to register to vote. On Election Day, have 10 fake names, go to 10 polling booths and vote 10 times. That’s 100 votes, and it’s not illegal. Maybe we should work the system too.”
However, after she started receiving backlash for the tweet, which she claimed to be sarcastic, Maye tried to salvage the situation by tweeting, “In Butler, Pennsylvania, we just heard that the Republicans will make sure no illegals vote. Ignore my previous post.” Her attempts, however, did not yield good results, as people on the internet said that it was too late for her to backtrack now.
