Elon Musk revealed last Wednesday that he and his brother, Kimball, have provided financial support to their father Errol since he “ran out of money” decades ago. Musk made the claim in response to a lengthy Twitter thread, which began with a video posted by former Clinton administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich – who claimed the Tesla CEO grew up rich because his father “owned an emerald mine.”
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When a Twitter supporter defended Musk in a series of tweets responding to the video, the billionaire joined in to agree and share some insight into his family dynamic. “Erol ran out of money in the 1990s,” Musk said. “My brother and I have been financially supporting him and his extended family in South Africa ever since, on the condition that he doesn’t do bad things. Unfortunately, he did do bad things.”
Musk did not elaborate on what he meant by “bad things”.
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The Tesla boss has been open about his contentious relationship with his father. In an interview with Rolling Stone in 2017, Musk described his father as “brilliant in engineering”, but “such a terrible human being”. “My father will have a carefully calculated evil plan,” Musk said at the time. “He will plan evil.” Errol Musk provided a glimpse of the family’s financial arrangement during a recent interview with an Australian radio station: “We are a very thrifty and stingy family,” said the Musk family patriarch. “If I want to release something, I have to answer 100 questions of why.”