Elon Musk’s ‘Self-Made’ Billionaire Status Challenged By His Father: Errol Musk Says Elon ‘Grew Up Rich’

Elon Musk often touts his “self-made” billionaire status and high intelligence.

Yet, his father, Errol Musk, 53, offers quiet a different take on his son’s journey to becoming the wealthiest person on Earth, with a net worth of approximately $400 billion. In an interview with Vlad TV, Errol, an engineer and property developer, sheds light on Musk’s rise to fame, but does not discuss much about Elon’s current buddy-buddy relationship with Trump, his unprecedented influence on the inner workings of the government nor his part in DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency).

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Errol’s two-and-a-half-hour interview, which was published on Feb. 13, provides a deeper, more personal insight into the family dynamics and Musk’s success.

Errol was born in South Africa to Cora Amelia Musk, who was British and his father Walter Musk, a South African. Errol, now 72, spoke aboutthe financial struggles his family had when he was young.

“I never even had a bed until I was 10 years old, never mind a bedroom,” Errol Musk said.” I slept on a couch until I was 10. My parents were too poor. We lived in two rooms in a boarding house in the immigrant section. I mean, we weren’t ‘poor.’ Poor people were rich compared to us.”

”So, when you start from nothing like I did, and you do get money, your instinct is to keep it and spend it as slowly as possible,” the elder Musk continued. 

He contrasted his own hardship with the privileges his sons have experienced.

Errol Musk and his ex-wife, Maye Musk, a model and dietitian, divorced in 1980, an event that Elon later described as contributing to his tumultuous childhood. Newsweek reported that Errol was allegedly abusive toward Maye during their marriage.

Elon and his brother, Kimbal, lived with their father in his lavish Waterkloof mansion in Pretoria, South Africa. The property, designed by renowned architect Herbert Baker, featured luxurious amenities including horses, eight bedrooms, a private chef, servants, a gymnasium, a jacuzzi, a tennis court, and even a snooker room, providing an opulent backdrop to their early lives.

The series of questions posed by Vlad highlighted the privileged upbringing of the billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk, suggesting that his success may not be as remarkable as it seems. Musk, who was born on June 28, 1971, had a safety net provided by his wealthy family, which allowed him to take risks without the fear of failure. By the age of 9, Musk was already living a life of luxury, riding in Rolls-Royces, flying in private planes, cruising on yachts, and enjoying motorcycles with his brother, Kimbal. These early experiences painted a picture of a life far removed from the struggles many face, casting a shadow over Musk’s narrative of self-made success.

“By the time they were 8 or 9 years old, I had given up Mercedes-Benz cars. I had moved on to Rolls-Royce cars, so they only rode in Rolls-Royces. If you understand, they knew that if you wanted to go somewhere, you got into a twin-engine airplane that belonged to you, and you flew there. Then you landed on your airstrip and went to your lodge,” Errol said of his privileged children.

“They weren’t like other kids. As I said, they learned to ski in Europe when they were still 10 or under. So they lived what I would call a life that was very different from the one I had as a child,” he explained.

“So, when you start from nothing like I did, and you do get money, your instinct is to keep it and spend it as slowly as possible … To [Elon], it was simple: ‘If you can make money once, you can make it again.’ He never believed he could truly lose everything. He felt entitled in the sense that he just got it, no matter what. There’s a term for it. Well, excuse my language, but, ‘sh- floats,’ you know? So no, they weren’t used to hardship. To them, hardship was when the Hilton ran out of filet steak or something,” Errol said.

Errol, as of 2025, has a net worth of $5 million. His wealth primarily comes from his career as an engineer and his property developments in South Africa. His projects have included office buildings, retail complexes, and the development of an air force base. By his 30s, he owned one of the largest homes in South Africa and had significant real estate investments and large-scale construction projects.

This was all during apartheid, a system of institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination enforced by the South African government from 1948 to 1994. The system was aimed to maintain the dominance of the white minority over the non-white majority population in South Africa.

Under apartheid, the government implemented laws that severely restricted the rights of Black South Africans and other non-white groups.

There has also been controversy surrounding his alleged ownership of various assets, including rumors about him owning an emerald mine in Zimbabwe, which he has denied.

There has also been contention involved over how much the older Musk helped his son Elon get started businesswise. Elon claims his father didn’t contribute much financially, while Errol says he helped fund Elon’s early business ventures. 

Elon‘s first pursuit of independence was attending Queen’s University in Canada before transferring to the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania where he studied physics and economics. He would later drop out of a Ph.D. program at Stanford University to pursue business ventures in Silicon Valley. 

His earlier ventures, including Zip Two, which provided online business directories, and X.com which later became PayPal, were crucial in his rise to riches. 

Elon made money from PayPal when he sold the company to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion. At the time, Musk was the company’s largest shareholder, owning 11.7 percent of the company. This earned him over $175 million, according to Investopedia. From there he went to Tesla. H was not a founding member but he led an early round of financing in 2004. He went from being a board member of Tesla to its CEO in 2008 even while still serving as the CEO of SpaceX.

Then Elon completed his acquisition of Twitter on Oct. 27, 2022, valued at $44 billion. After rebranding the social media platform as X, the company’s market cap dropped by 71.5 percent. Neuralink, which focuses on computer chip implants in the brain, is another Musk venture.

Additional reporting by Ann Brown.