Just days before Donald Trump embarks on his second term as President of the United States, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is set to play a key role in the new administration.
In an exclusive interview, Errol Musk, father of the tech mogul, reflects on how his son’s upbringing shaped his ambitious vision and determination.
Addressing recent concerns surrounding Elon’s influence on Trump’s policies, Errol dismisses the notion that his son is vying for control, instead describing him as a team player focused on tackling America’s challenges.
With sharp opinions on political developments in the UK, Germany, and Greece, Errol Musk provides unique insight into his son’s role in shaping global politics.
But what sort of relationship does he have with his son?
I’m Elon’s father, and I know him very well, and he grew up with me, he did his entire school career with me and he’s quite a lot like me, I’m told. He’s made a lot of progress over all my other children. He’s had a lot of good opportunities thrown his way, so that’s brought him in the limelight quite a lot, and I’m very pleased with his performance. It’s very good.
You describe a close relationship between yourself and your son when he was young. How do you think that relationship has affected him?
A whole lot of it stems from his upbringing. I mean, I was a consulting engineer. Elon traveled around the world with me. I was a politician here (South Africa). He was involved with that. So, he had a lot of input when he was a child, in many ways. We always had a private airplane. We sailed an ocean yacht. He’s done a lot of all those kinds of things. He’d seen most of the world, most of the important cities in the world by the time he was 12. So, he had a very broad grasp of things. When he went to the United States, to start studying, he’d already been there, twice with me for long periods, we’d spent six weeks there each time, so he had a very good idea of what the United States was about.
And now he’s about to head up Trump’s new “Department of Government Efficiency”. How do you see his in that role? It has already stirred up a lot of controversy…
The Democrats are trying to pretend or give people the idea that he’s trying to take over from Donald Trump. I mean, that’s absolute nonsense. Elon is a team player. There’s no way that he would do anything like that. And besides, they already have a tremendous job on their shoulders to just start trying to make things right in the United States. Biden was on his way to turning America into another Venezuela. So, there’s a lot of work to do to get back on track, and that’s what they’re concentrating on. Nothing else.
So you don’t share any of these concerns? Not even about your son’s rumored influence over the president-elect?
He’s a team player. He doesn’t try to step in front of his people in the businesses he’s put them in to do what they need to do. And it’s the same with where he is now with Trump. He will work on the part that he’s been given. These people who say that he’s going to fight with Trump and all that sort of thing, that’s nonsense. I mean, the reason he’s on good terms with Trump is that they see eye to eye. They agree with each other. And Elon would know that his position is what’s been given to him, and he’s not going to try and outshine the President of America. Of course not. It’s just that the Democrats, because that’s the weapon they’re using now, trying to pretend that Elon is going to sort of push himself on top of Trump. No, that’s not real. That’s just fake Democrat news.
Do you think that Elon’s involvement in global politics is a natural extension of his desire to change the world?
He was always very much into changing things by being a technical innovator, which is, of course, the way you change the world. I don’t believe he had any interest in politics. He certainly didn’t have much interest in politics until about 2020, end of 2021, when Biden invited all the electric car makers in America to the White House for a five-day meeting to discuss having an electric car future in America by 2035. He didn’t invite Tesla and Tesla that year built a million cars and sold them. And Biden introduced GM as the leading car manufacturer and GM had only built 26 cars, which hadn’t sold. And he also introduced the head of GM, a woman, as the head of the leader in electric car technology in America, totally ignoring Elon. This completely puzzled Elon. He couldn’t understand such a thing, that such a thing could happen, so that woke him up. And then in the month that followed, in January 2022, when he queried what was going on, hundreds and thousands of Twitters were made, Twitters about how bad he is, and he couldn’t understand this until somebody explained to him that Twitter is a paid private government, democratic government, for propaganda, it’s not a free speech platform. And then Elon said, well, in that case, I’m going to buy Twitter and put an end to this. Initially, we thought Twitter was worth 7 billion, but they eventually forced him to pay 44 billion. They tried to stop him from buying Twitter, but today Twitter is a free–the only really free speech platform in the world. And it’s now doing ten times the turnover that it did in 2022.
You have connections with the United Kingdom. Could you tell us a little more about your roots and your links to the UK?
I’m eligible for a British passport by virtue of my parents, and if I get a British passport, then so is Elon. He’s entitled to a British passport, if he wanted to be British. We like England. We’ve always liked the UK, and we’ve always liked going there to look around and enjoy the scenery and history and so on. So, we feel ourselves quite tied to the place. We see England as a sort of parent country, one that we all sort of come from. We always thought the English way was the good way and we all thought the English people do the right thing and we feel like we’re part of that and just lately we don’t think the British government is doing the right thing. We think they’ve moved away from doing the right thing. They’ve become some other kind of authoritarian, almost fascist government blocking people in prison for objecting on, on social media to things in UK. I mean, it’s crazy what’s going on in the UK right now. It can’t go on.
Elon has described Britain as a “tyrannical police state”. What are your thoughts on these statements of his?
I was the first one, I think two and a half months, maybe three months ago, I said Starmer should step down and there should be a new election. So I was the first one to say that. And after that, it seems to have been taken up everywhere. I’ve been on many, many shows in England or news programs. And I said the same thing, because what these people in England are doing is simply not what the English people do. And it’s all wrong and everybody knows that by now, everybody’s aware of that. I can’t see Starmer staying there past February.
There have been persistent rumors of late that Elon has open channels of communication with Nigel Farage’s party, Reform UK. Do you think this reflects his broader desire to disrupt traditional political systems?
I do believe that the Tories are no good. They are just Labour with a different color jacket on. The Tories are no good. The only possible hope is Reform for England, but the leader, Farage, he speaks sense, he talks sense. Whether he’s got the strength to be the leader is difficult because you need a leader, a new leader with a very strong man for the new leadership, a man who says, you can crucify me, but I will not stop, I will keep on. And I don’t see that in the people, the people that they’ve got, but let’s hope something comes about. I do know that Elon and Trump feel that the Reform Party would be a better choice for England. The difficulty is that the Labour people have said such extraordinary, rude, deprecating things about Trump that it’s almost impossible, it cannot be possible to sit at the same table as someone who has called you a rotten piece of shit. You can’t really do that.
But in Germany, Elon’s statements in support of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party have sparked outrage. Doesn’t that constitute involvement in German politics?
Yes, the AfD, I think is not far right. I mean, that’s rubbish. It’s more like a common-sense party. This thing where you, anybody who doesn’t agree with you is far right. That’s nonsense. These people are a common-sense party. What you do have is the other parties that are, I don’t know, they’re mentally disturbed, is what I would say. The other parties, they’re brainless or they’re mentally disturbed. No, the people that you’re referring to as far right are not far right. Same as the protesters in England with the riots. They were just ordinary people, dead center. Just like Elon. Elon’s dead center. Elon’s not far right, neither is Trump. They’re dead center. They’re common-sense people. If somebody came to Elon from the so-called left or the so-called right with a good idea, he would accept the idea from either side. He’s not, he’s not stuck in one groove. But coming back to the German party that you’re talking about, no, they’re not far right. They’re just normal. They want common sense.
Do you think it’s right for Elon to comment so directly on an election in another nation, given that he is to play an active role in the new Trump administration?
As he’s still a private individual he can, anyone can comment on anything. I mean, it’s whether the media takes it up. If he’s finally installed in Trump’s cabinet, obviously anything he says has to be assumed to come from the government in America. So, that’s different. But right now, he’s not installed in any position. And so, he’s in a private capacity. He can say whatever he likes.
But do you accept the criticism he has faced for supporting polarizing figures?
No, because Elon talks sense. You can take what he said to the bank, so you learned from me and you can take what I say to the bank. And no, Elon’s not going to say anything or support people that are going to be a problem for anybody. No, he will do what’s right. You can, you can bank on that.
Have you ever visited Greece? Elon spoke recently of a “population collapse” in the country, based on an article.
We love Greece. Greece is one of the ancient civilizations, it’s where we all come from and it’s going to where we sort of came from. Greece is very important and the history of Greece and the contribution of the Greeks to the world is just unbelievable. Obviously, one of the first things we did is go to Greece. The first time I went to Greece, I think I was 22 years old. We subsequently took Elon to Greece. We’ve done that. We’ve gone through the Greek islands. Greece is wonderful. As far as birth rates and stuff are concerned, you know, if a country has a negative birth rate, then it does mean that you are going to slowly get less and less people there. And if you have a birth rate like some places in Germany, it means every year, actually the population is supposed to be 30 percent less. And so it won’t take long before, with every new generation, before there’s a very small population there. And it looks like whoever’s doing it wants to replace the population with people from third world countries.
What advice would you give Elon on his new role?
Keep a level head. You know, don’t look back, keep a level head. Keep a level head.
