Many would walk past him without a second glance. But this unassuming man, in a brown jacket and faded jeans, is the man who brought up a billionaire in Africa. This is Errol Musk, father to Elon – the $13.3-billion United States entrepreneur who founded PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX and wants to go to Mars. Eroll’s son, Kimbal, is a millionaire and his daughter, Tasko, is a film producer.
“They’ve been doing well all their lives. It’s not like one suddenly jumps into it right now. It’s been like that as far as I can remember. [Elon’s] sister Tasko would say you can ask Elon to do a lot of things on his computer but don’t ask him to catch a bus. We traveled a lot in those days, their mother and I split up when they were quite young and the kids stayed with me. I took them all over the world. Elon was generally in the backseat, Kimbal, my other son who is just as energetic as Elon, would do all the guiding and navigating,” says Errol.
“Elon has always been an introvert thinker, so where a lot of people would go to a great party and have a great time and drink and talk about all sorts of things like rugby or sport, you would find Elon had found the person’s library and was going through their books. He’d find fun in that, not to say he wasn’t a person who would party every now and then.”
“The kind of things he would come up with as a youngster was always surprising. When he was very small, he would ask me ‘where is the whole world?’ when he was three or four. It was these sorts of questions that made me realize that he was a little different,” says Errol in an interview on radio station 702, in Johannesburg.
The Musk family is full of adventurers. Errol’s grandmother was Canada’s first chiropractor. His father and mother were the first to fly from South Africa to Australia in a single-engine plane. Errol, a pilot, sailor and engineer, raised Elon and Kimbal in the quiet suburbs of Pretoria.
Elon’s siblings also share the limelight. Toska is a producer and director. Kimbal owns a number of restaurant chains and spearheads a non-profit school education based program, The Kitchen Community, which grows vegetables in the United States.
“Kimbal is much more of a party animal. He is one of the two original directors of SpaceX and he’s a director of Tesla… But he’s in his own world [and has] gone into restaurants and catering. He has a number of very large restaurants. He is also part of one of the fastest growing fast foods spaces called Chipotle Mexican Grill.”
“Kimbal started a thing where he put fiberglass tubes in a snakelike shape to make a garden and taught children to grow vegetables… an article on FORBES said he was the Musk who is going to change how we eat.”
It’s a story that dates back to the 1980s in Pretoria. Errol made money by consulting and developing properties while the boys scribbled away at their desks at Pretoria Boys High School (PBHS).
“My impression is that Elon kept to himself and was relatively quiet and reserved. I believe he was involved with the computer club at school, but otherwise was not really visible in mainstream activities,” says Gavin Ehlers who was headboy at PBHS in 1988, the same year Musk finished school.
Not surprisingly, Elon graduated with distinctions in physical science and computer science, recalls Bill Schroder, the headmaster of the school from 1990 to 2009. Elon and Kimbal then emigrated to Canada with their mother, Maye, in part to avoid conscription in the South African army, before taking the plunge as entrepreneurs in the United States.
“In the mid-eighties I remember him showing me a box with a red light on it and he would say this is a modem. With this, computers can talk to one another. If that computer is on the line then I can talk to a computer in England and ask it questions. He was always switched on,” says Errol.
So what lies ahead for the billionaire Elon who wants to go to Mars?
On the cards is a possible return to Africa to install thousands of Tesla Powerwalls, a 15-centimeter sized battery box that can store up to 10kWh of free, cheap renewable energy for your house.. This is enough energy to keep your fridge cold for 600 hours, according to Eskom, South Africa’s national power utility, and could solve the country’s energy problems.
“As far as Elon is concerned, I worry, what now? What is there? I start to worry of boredom. I get worried that he is getting bored of sending stuff to NASA every week or two weeks. I mean this is becoming passé… He is one of those people, and certainly was as a boy, if he suddenly decides it’s not interesting anymore he just kind of drops it. I doubt he will though,” says Errol.
From Pretoria to the stars, Elon could go to Mars.

How To Raise A Family Of Genius Billionaires

It can be tough to get hold of a busy mother; tougher still, when she’s fighting the good fight against corruption and is on the front pages of all the newspapers. Thank goodness for social media.
Many know Thuli Madonsela for her work as South Africa’s Public Protector. Few know she is a single parent with two children Wenzile and Mbusowabantu.
“It’s so difficult to get hold of my mom; I sometimes have to get hold of her through Twitter,” says Wenzile, Madonsela’s daughter.
In 1998, their father, Nhlanhla Mngomezulu, the first Secretary General of the People’s United Democratic Movement in Swaziland, died of a stroke.
“My father was passionate about human rights and movements, that is how he and my mom met. They shared the same passion,” says Wenzile.
We are at the Serious Social Investing Conference, in the Gordon Institute of Business Science in Sandton. Here, Wenzile is engaged in a heated debate with Adam Habib, Vice-Chancellor at the University of the Witwatersrand and Anthony Farr, CEO of the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation.
Her brother Mbusowabantu is also present.
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“At home, she’s not the Public Protector. She is a loving mother; she hurts when we’re hurting. She takes no joy in our pain. The reason I can dream is because of her. She raised us to believe anything is possible and that we can achieve whatever we want,” says Wenzile, wonderfully opinionated and not afraid to speak her mind. Her brother is a soft-spoken environmentalist.
“We come from a home where we live out the spirit of Ubuntu. For example, she sent five children to university because she’s trying to break the cycle of poverty.”
Wenzile says Madonsela is a diplomat. “She likes sugar-coating things.”
What makes her angry? “If you interfere with her territory, she bites. But she doesn’t lose her temper,” says Wenzile.
According to Madonsela’s son Mbusowabantu, deception is what annoys Madonsela the most.
The 24-year-old Wenzile is following in her mother’s footsteps, studying towards a degree in law at the University of Pretoria and is also Secretary General of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) at university.
“I feel like we can’t live in a false paradise, we need to redress past injustices before dealing with current ones.”
Big on black consciousness, in 2015, Wenzile decided to enter politics, a decision Madonsela supported.
“In terms of harnessing my dreams, whether through the ANC or EFF, she supports me. As long as it resonates with my identity and vision… she invests in our dreams. She used to be a communist herself.”
In February 2011, controversy loomed at the Madonsela household, when Mbusowabantu, crashed her BMW X6, a state-owned car into a garden wall on Lucky Bean Crescent in the center of Pretoria, after allegedly attempting to avoid a dog on the road.
“If we do something wrong, she doesn’t defend us&#8230; When she heard about the car, she told me to take responsibility for my actions.”
“My mother is socially awkward. She is always discussing work, philosophy and politics. She finds it difficult to converse with a stranger,” says Mbusowabantu.
“I am still finding myself and identifying with the circumstances of being the Public Protector’s daughter. I have to be careful of what I do even though sometimes it’s harmless to me,” says Wenzile.
Mbusowabantu hopes Madonsela’s successor will have the integrity his mother has.
So does South Africa.

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FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

How To Raise A Family Of Genius Billionaires

‘I Sometimes Have To Get Hold Of Her Through Twitter’