Anyone who has read the biography of Elon Musk will understand, because you will find that this person is very complicated. Some people say he is a liar, some say he is a genius, some say he is a madman, and some say he is a pioneer.
But one thing is undeniable, he is very arrogant, so arrogant that he looks down on the earthlings, which is also the reason why many people are unhappy with him. But looking back at the things he has accomplished, if you take any one of them, I guess you will have to walk with your head held high. First of all, he built SpaceX. Although it is an improved technology based on Nasa, the cost has been reduced by 90%. This is like the car was invented by Mercedes-Benz, but the assembly line production method was invented by Ford.
Moreover, the company has also developed recycling technology, which is unprecedented. This alone is enough for Musk to brag about for the rest of his life. In addition, he has created Tesla. Today, no one still believes that Tesla will go bankrupt at any time, right? Unless all electric cars in the world die, Tesla will be the last one to go bankrupt.
I won’t start talking about other companies one by one, from ZIP2, where he made his first $20 million when he started his business, to Paypal, which later made him a billionaire, to Neuralink, which has been working on brain-computer interfaces for the past few years, and Solarcity, which his brother is helping him run, plus the Hyperloop project, which digs tunnels underground and uses vacuum tubes for transportation. This guy seems to have endless energy. He complains and chats with everyone on Twitter (X). Musk is a veritable global top internet celebrity. Whatever he does, he can attract everyone’s attention. Including the last bull market, Musk harvested a wave of cryptocurrency users, which should still be fresh in everyone’s memory.
While we are talking about Musk's entrepreneurial history, we will also talk about gossip about him. We know that it is very difficult to have both career and family. How much time can a frequent flyer like Musk spend with his family and children? The answer is basically none. Women often say that men spend their time on what they value most. He values work, so he is busy with work every day. If you value your family, you will find ways to spend time with your family. Musk has been married three times and has had two wives, one of whom divorced and remarried, and then divorced again. He is single now, but a woman gave birth to a child for him. So, this person is so successful in his career, but the happiness brought to him by marriage and family may not be as good as ours.
His original family is also a sad thing that he doesn't want to mention.
His father was a scumbag. He divorced his mother in his early years, and divorced again a few years after his second marriage. In the end, his father got his stepdaughter from his second marriage pregnant, and the two finally got married, so Musk's sister instantly became his stepmother. Two years ago, Musk's mother Maye wrote an autobiography "My Life by Me", which is very inspiring. You can read it when you have time. If you are in a low period in your life, this book may give you energy.
As long as the topic of Elon Musk comes up, I will talk non-stop. This opening is obviously a bit too long, but it basically explains some of the story lines that we will unfold later. Now the story about Musk officially begins. Let us enter the world of Elon Musk, the recognized super-talented man on earth.
On June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, the administrative capital of South Africa, a baby boy was born. This is our hero, Elon Musk. Some people say that this is not right. Shouldn't Musk be an American? Yes, according to the information currently available, Musk has three nationalities. They are the United States, Canada, and South Africa (some say he has given up his South African citizenship), and South Africa is where he was born.
Some students may ask, why is the capital called the administrative capital? Because South Africa is the only country in the world with three capitals, namely the administrative capital Pretoria, the legislative capital Cape Town, and the judicial capital Bloemfontein.
Don’t think Africa is a poor place with barefoot black kids playing in the mud. In fact, the three richest countries in Africa are South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt. And the capital of South Africa is even less likely to be poor. Not only that, there are a lot of white people here, because it was colonized by Europeans in the early years, and then diamonds and gold were discovered, and a large number of European immigrants came. Musk’s family originally lived in Canada, and in 1950 his grandfather moved his grandmother to South Africa. But at that time, there was no name Musk, and it should be called the Haldeman family who immigrated to South Africa.
Elon Musk was named by his great-grandfather. His great-grandfather was John Elon Haldeman, and his father was Errol Musk. So he was called Elon Musk. Foreigners always put their surnames at the end, and children always take their father's surname. Elon Musk himself said that his father was a scumbag, but he was very talented and an engineer. His mother Maye was very beautiful, and his mother also had the adventurous spirit inherited from the Haldeman family. In fact, if you want to talk about Elon Musk, you should start with his mother.
Elon Musk's great-grandfather, John Elon Haldeman, was born in 1872 and lived in the United States until he was 35 years old. He then moved to Canada. Why did he move? I guess it has something to do with John's health. At the age of 28, John married Almeida Jane Norman, a masseuse who was five years younger than him.
At the age of 30, she gave birth to her eldest son, Joshua Norman Haldeman. But John was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 32. At that time, this disease was basically a death sentence. The doctor concluded that he would not live more than 6 months. So the whole family moved to Canada, probably to recuperate and spend their old age in peace. Miraculously, Almeida knew a spinal massage method that could prolong her husband's life. As a result, this method made her husband live 5 years longer. In 1905, Elon Musk's great-grandmother later opened a clinic. It is said that she was the first masseur in Canada.
John died when his eldest son Joshua was 7 years old, so Joshua was born in the United States and grew up in Canada. While his mother ran a clinic, he herded horses, chopped wood, and practiced boxing and wrestling. Under the influence of his mother, he also got a degree from a massage school, and then returned to his own farm, herded horses, chopped wood, and helped his mother run the clinic. In 1934, Joshua was already 32 years old. At this time, the family ranch was seized because of the Great Depression and could not repay the loan.
Therefore, the family could only rely on a small clinic to survive. Joshua, who was penniless, married a dance teacher, Winnie, when he was 46 years old. Joshua opened a small clinic and his wife Winnie opened a dance training class. Their life was getting better. Less than a year after marriage, they had a son and a daughter, and later a pair of twin daughters, named Kaye and Maye. Maye here is Elon Musk's mother.
Joshua's reputation in chiropractic care is growing. He participated in the establishment of the Canadian Chiropractic Association and the Canadian Chiropractic College. It can be said that he is doing very well. But it is not known whether he makes more money from his chiropractic clinic or his wife's dance training class. After a few years, Joshua suddenly fell in love with flying and bought a single-engine private plane. He took his family to travel around North America when he had nothing to do.
When Joshua was 48 years old, he couldn't stand the bureaucracy of the Canadian government, so he decided to move to South Africa with his wife and four children. Joshua immigrated to South Africa because he was fooled by his friends because many white people made a fortune there because there were gold and diamonds. But if you have a certain reputation in the chiropractic care industry in Canada, your wife's training class has regular students, and you have pre-charged many membership cards in advance, would you make the decision to move your family to another country? You wouldn't, but Elon Musk's grandparents did so.
After settling down in Pretoria, South Africa, they should have reopened a small clinic and dance training class, and then been busy with their own small business. Unexpectedly, from then on, Joshua took his wife Winnie to fly around the world, to Scotland, Norway, and even from Africa to Australia. It is said that he is the only private pilot in history to fly a single-engine plane from Africa to Australia.
When they were free, they went to the Kalahari Desert in Africa to look for lost ancient cities. They did not go alone, but took their whole family on an adventure. If there were self-media at that time, they might have started a column called "Where Are We Going, Dad?", and after it became popular, they could have asked sponsors to help them continue their travels.
There are two things I cannot understand. First, they don't work but just hang around. Where do they get the money? After looking up a lot of information, I came to two conclusions. First, they made enough money in Canada. Second, they probably invested in some minerals with their friends when they came to South Africa. So, don't just follow others to be adventurers. As long as they come back alive, they still have hundreds of millions of capital. If you come back alive, you may only have a bank loan.
Unfortunately, it happened. In 1974, Joshua, 72, had just become a grandfather (Elon Musk was the eldest grandson, born in 1971). During a landing exercise, Joshua did not see a wire between two poles. As a result, the wire got entangled in the wheels of the plane and flipped the plane over. Joshua broke his neck and died. The legendary life of Elon Musk's grandfather came to an end. Joshua's wife Winnie, Musk's grandmother, lived until she was 98 years old. It can be said that she witnessed Musk's brilliant achievements.
Now let's go back to the perspective of Elon Musk's mother Maye. Maye was born in 1948 and is 73 years old this year. Maye has been a good kid since she was a child. Her mother is a dance teacher with a stunning figure, and her father is an adventurer who flies airplanes. So Maye was very charming when she was 15 years old, with blonde hair and blue eyes, and she was very graceful. Since then, she has been a model to make money and has been a finalist in the Miss South Africa competition.
Her independent and bold personality remained unchanged until she was old. She even appeared naked on the cover of The New Yorker in her 60s. Like father, like son, like daughter, like son. Like son, like mouse. Crazy grandfather, crazy mother, crazy Musk became king.
Mayer's greatest success is raising two billionaire sons and a daughter who is a top producer. Needless to say, his eldest son, Elon Musk, is a natural choice. His youngest son, Kimbal, followed his elder brother, but after successfully cashing out from Zip2 and Paypal, he started his own business and became the owner of a chain of restaurants.
Thanks to her brother, the youngest daughter Toscana had her first movie sponsored by Musk. She then founded her own film company and won the Best Producer Award. It seems that having three children is necessary. As long as one of them does well, the other two can be brought to success.
But Mayer's biggest failure was her marriage. As the saying goes, beauty is the root of trouble. Because she was beautiful since she was a child, she was pestered by Errol Musk, who went to school in the same neighborhood. Errol was a scumbag and good at PUA. Although Mayer was very beautiful, he would constantly attack Mayer, saying that she had a thick neck, a bad figure, and was not good here and there. If he didn't pity her, no man in the world would want her. They broke up and got back together, and their relationship was always unstable. After entangled for 7 years, Mayer finally decided to marry this man.
Some women would say that a scumbag is good in everything except being a scumbag. Maybe Mayer thought so too, and she probably felt that she could change his scumbag characteristics. If the prodigal son returns, Errol is still a very high-quality man, because he has a good family background, his father is an army sergeant, and his mother is an intellectual. Errol himself is a mechanical and electrical engineer, responsible for handling some large projects such as office buildings, shopping malls, residential buildings and air force bases (probably his father's connections). I guess Musk's later military connections were introduced by his father?
Maye was deceived by Errol at the age of 22. In less than a year, she gave birth to Elon Musk. The following year, she gave birth to her younger brother Kimball Musk. The third year, she gave birth to her younger sister Tosca Musk. She completed the three-child plan within three years of marriage, which can be said to be very efficient. However, during this period, her husband Errol's scumbag nature was exposed. He beat and kicked Maye for no reason. It is said that the original family is very important. When Elon Musk was just learning to speak, he saw such scenes.
Some people said, if you can't live together, just get a divorce. The weird thing is that the law in South Africa at that time prohibited women from getting divorced. Maye thought about running away, but the scumbag Errol threatened her, if you dare to leave, I will cut your face with a razor blade, and then shoot each of the three children and kill them all. There was no choice, Maye had to endure the beatings at home as a full-time housewife, while taking time to study, and got a master's degree in nutrition at the age of 25. This step is too critical. If a woman wants to be independent, she must first be financially independent. She later founded her own nutrition consulting company.
Finally, when she was 31 years old, South Africa introduced a law allowing women to divorce. Maye seized the opportunity and promised to give all the money she had earned over the years to her husband, and then she left the house with her three children. Finally, this year Maye left the clutches of the scumbag Errol and began to make a living alone with her three children. This year, Elon Musk was only 9 years old. An irresponsible and bad-tempered bastard father and a tough and hardworking beautiful mother had a huge impact on Elon Musk's subsequent character development. Humans have been imitating since birth. Except for the action of sucking milk, which can be learned without learning, everything else is imitating the adults around them.
Elon Musk has been a loner since he was a child. On the one hand, it was influenced by his family environment, and on the other hand, it was because his family often moved because of his father's work, so he often had to transfer schools. Musk entered school relatively early and was always the youngest in the class. He was a newcomer and a little guy, so he was often bullied by his classmates. Therefore, he kept to himself, kept books as his companions, and read a lot every day. It really fits the saying that if you don't read, your worldview is determined by your relatives and friends around you. Musk often brags that he has a photographic memory, which we cannot confirm, but he was admitted to Stanford University as a graduate student. At least he must have outperformed most people in terms of studying.
In 1980, when Elon Musk was almost 10 years old, he saw a computer for the first time. At that time, the computer had only 5kb memory and used BASIC assembly language. Musk read it all in 3 days and 3 nights. Although his parents had just divorced not long ago, his father still had a conscience and bought him a computer without saying anything. However, Elon Musk did live up to everyone's expectations and he was indeed talented in programming.
When he was 12 years old, he developed a game called Blaster, in which the player played a pilot whose mission was to destroy aliens carrying hydrogen bombs. Although the game looks simple and boring, it is amazing when you think about the work of a 12-year-old child in 1983. That year, Musk sold the Blaster game to Computers and Office Technology magazine and earned $500.
Until 1989, when Elon Musk graduated from high school, he lived in South Africa. During this period, he took the initiative to move to his father's place and live with his father. Because his father had a mansion in Waterkloof, a wealthy area in Pretoria, and there were servants at home.
His father had accumulated his initial wealth through engineering, and then invested in emerald mining. He was a real South African millionaire, and his mother's conditions were definitely not comparable. And according to Musk's ex-wife, Musk was not close to his parents. So, if it were you, who would you be willing to live with? It's better to be practical. His younger brother Kimball later moved in and lived with them for a while.
His father later remarried and found a stepmother who was also remarried and had a daughter. The two lived together for 18 years. The stepmother gave birth to two daughters, who became Musk's half-sisters. I have already talked about the subsequent plot. When his father Errol was 72 years old, he married his 30-year-old stepdaughter and gave birth to a son.
Therefore, Elon Musk still doesn't want his children to see his grandfather, who he thinks is a scumbag. But Errol thinks Musk is ungrateful. If it weren't for the superior living environment he provided, how could you have achieved what you have today? Besides, your private life is not much better than mine, so the old man often diss Musk in public.
In 1989, after Musk graduated from high school, his mother Maye moved to Canada with her three siblings, leaving South Africa, a sad place. 40 years ago, Maye's parents took them from Canada to South Africa to settle down when she was only two years old. Now, 40 years have passed, and there is no one or anything worth remembering in South Africa. There is only the love that she can't bear to look back on and is scarred.
When the 42-year-old woman boarded the plane to Canada with Elon Musk and his friends, she must have hoped to start her life over again and turn over a new leaf with all her strength. She could never have imagined that Elon Musk, who had just graduated from high school, would become a heroic figure who inspired and transformed human history. Starting from the next issue, we will officially enter Elon Musk's life and talk about Musk's first pot of gold and his first love.
To be continued~