*As Errol, Accused Of Sexually Abusing Five Children, Stepchildren Says It’s False, Nonsense
TECH billionaire, Elon Musk, is worried about a report by the New York Times that his estranged father, Errol, has been accused of sexually abusing five of his children and stepchildren since 1993.
In a post on his X account, the Tesla boss recalled: “I grew up in a lower, transitioning to upper, middle income situation, but did not have a happy childhood. Haven’t inherited anything ever from anyone, nor has anyone given me a large financial gift.
“My father created a small electrical/mechanical engineering company that was successful for 20 to 30 years, but it fell on hard times. He has been essentially bankrupt for about 25 years, requiring financial support from my brother and me.
“That said, he does deserve credit for teaching me the fundamentals of physics, engineering and construction, which is more valuable than money, but did not support me financially after high school in any meaningful way.
“Our condition of providing him financial support was that he not engage in bad behavior.
“Unfortunately, he nonetheless did. There are young children involved, so we continued to provide financial support for their well-being.
“Regarding the so-called “emerald mine,” there is no objective evidence whatsoever that this mine ever existed. He told me that he owned a share in a mine in Zambia, and I believed him for a while, but nobody has ever seen the mine, nor are there any records of its existence.
“If this mine was real, he would not require financial support from my brother and me.”
According to New York Times, Errol has been accused of abusing five of his children over three decades
The outlet reviewed multiple Police report and spoke to social workers and family members to uncover the allegations against 79-year-old Errol.
The earliest accusation was in 1993, when the Musk patriarch’s four-year-old then-stepdaughter told relatives he had touched her inappropriately.
A decade later, she said she had caught Errol sniffing her dirty underwear.
The same former stepdaughter, whose mother married Musk twice, said she had a child with him in her 20s and struggled with drug addiction.
The incident formed part of a wider series of allegations that members said had torn the Musk family apart for years.
Some have turned to Elon, the eldest child, for help.
In 2010, a letter to the tech billionaire, seen by the New York Times, implored him to intervene. “We really need your advice, help and guidance in these matters, because we daily see these children suffer,” the relative allegedly wrote.
Errol has not been convicted of any crime, and ‘Silence, discomfort and speculation’ surround the Musk family
The allegations of abuse have been gaining traction in the months leading up to the New York Times investigation.
In June, Errol Musk’s former sister-in-law spoke to podcaster, Joshua Rubin, who had previously interviewed the South African businessman.
The relationship with his stepdaughter, according to Rubin, had long been surrounded by “silence, discomfort, and speculation.@
Elon has said he is estranged from his father, who claims they have a close relationship.
Elmie Smit, whose sister, Heide-Mari Bezuidenhout, was Errol’s third wife, reached out to him for the then-anonymous interview.
“When it became clear is (soon after) Heide and Errol got married in 1993,” Smit said.
“Heide felt something was wrong with (her daughter) … at four years old (she) was behaving like a teenager, kicking, screaming, crying.”
The child told a relative that Errol had molested her. “I couldn’t believe how a little girl child could cry, her heart was broken,” Smit said.
“She said, ‘please don’t tell my mum, please don’t tell my mum.’
“She said that she was watching a cartoon, he came into the sitting room … he picked her up and he carried her outside to where the bins were stored.”
The four-year-old spoke to Police on October 26, 1993, the same day her mother, according to Smit, confronted Errol.
“He burst into tears,” Smit said.
“He admitted that he had done it, he then also said that he had gone through trauma (that had) spilled over.”
The New York Times said it had been given a case number for the incident, confirmed by the South African Police.
The charges were later withdrawn as part of a divorce settlement.
Errol has said he was given custody of the child following the divorce, a claim which could not be verified.
Two years later, Smit said, the girl attempted to “throw herself off the roof,” saying she had been abused again.
Errol attended a forum in Russia earlier this year.
Bezuidenhout remarried Errol in 1999, and the pair had another daughter in 2001.
In 2002, the stepdaughter, then 14, went into her bedroom in the family’s $2million ($3.03 million) Malibu home.
There, she found her stepfather sniffing her dirty underwear, the family said the Police, child protective services and Elon Musk were also alerted.
Errol Musk has denied the accusation.
After the incident, the family said Elon explored potential legal guardianship of the children and moved his father back to South Africa.
Errol was also accused directly of abusing his two daughters and his stepson in an interim protection order filed by the former stepdaughter in 2009.
“I don’t want him to be allowed to come close to me,” she wrote in the order, which was granted by a South African magistrate.
The same allegations were noted in a letter sent by Bezuidenhout to Elon in 2007, according to the New York Times.
The former stepdaughter, now 37, told the New York Times she was being financially supported by Elon and did not live with Errol.
The pair reconnected and formed a romantic relationship several years ago and have since had at least one child together.
“My kids are safe and looked after,” she said.
In 2022, family members alleged, their then five-year-old son said he had been groped by his father, Errol .
South African Police confirmed there had been an investigation into child sexual abuse, but did not name those involved.
The case was dropped due to insufficient evidence.
In an email to the Times, Errol called the allegations “false and nonsense in the extreme,” saying the abuse allegations had been made up by family members “putting the children up to say false things” in an effort to get money from his eldest son.
Errol married his first wife, Maye Haldeman, in 1970. That first marriage produced his oldest three children- Elon, Kimbal and Tosca Musk.
Errol and Maye divorced in 1979, with Maye later making several allegations of domestic violence.
Elon, she said in one interview, “grew up in a very violent home.”
She told the BBC in 2022 she had declined a proposal from Errol, who had then contacted her entire family to say she had accepted.
“They didn’t know I was seeing him, and I wasn’t. And then I just got this telegram from my parents (saying) congratulations, the wedding arrangements are made, the invites are out and 800 people are coming.
“The abuse started right away … I came back from my honeymoon bruised and pregnant.”
Errol has denied these allegations.
Maye has made multiple public appearances alongside her oldest son.
Errol was briefly married a second time to a woman named Sue before his marriage to Heide-Mari Bezuidenhout.
Along with three stepchildren, the relationship produced two daughters.
In his relationship with his former stepdaughter, Errol has claimed both of her children are his. But she has said only one of them is Errol’s child.
“This is a wound that has festered for a very long time,” Smit said in June.
“It’s not easy to speak about this. It’s exposing a lot, and you ask yourself, ‘is this the right thing to do, or not?”
The relationship between Elon and his father has been the subject of much back and forth animosity for the last decade.
Both men have an engineering background, both have numerous children, both have been married multiple times.
After his parents divorced when he was just eight years old, Elon stayed with his father in South Africa.
His younger siblings, Kimbal and Tosca, went with their mother, with the Tesla boss telling a biographer in 2017 he “felt sorry” for his father.
Elon added: “He seemed very sad and lonely by himself. But I didn’t really understand at the time what kind of person he was.”
The Musk family fortune came about as a result of construction and emerald trading, with the elder Musk telling media they had “so much money we couldn’t even close our safe.”
But while Elon has described his father as “brilliant,” he has also described him as “evil.”
“He was such a terrible human being, you have no idea,” he said in the 2017 interview, at times becoming emotional.
“My dad will have a carefully thought-out plan of evil. He will plan evil.”
“Almost every crime you can possibly think of, he has done. Almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done.”
He said he had tried “everything” to change his father after moving the family to Malibu. “In my experience, there is nothing you can do,” he said.
After returning to South Africa, Errol emailed his sons to ask for money, saying he was “totally dependent” on them.
Personal letters, emails and interviews sent by family members and seen by the New York Times showed them repeatedly asking Elon to intervene in his father’s behaviour.
Several times, Elon’s assistants replied for him. On other occasions, the family said, he provided financial support.
In a rare comment about his father in May 2023, Elon said he “did not have a happy childhood.”
He and his brother, according to him, had agreed to support their father on the condition he not engage in “bad behaviour.”
“Unfortunately, he nonetheless did,” he said.
The outlet reported that the allegations may explain why Elon, who briefly served as an adviser to United States (US) President, Donald Trump, rarely speaks about his father, according to Guardian US.
The paper, citing letters, emails and interviews, said Errol, who has at least nine children and stepchildren and has been married to three women, “maintains a powerful grip over much of the family.”
