Father and son: Errol and Elon Musk

Their story in order: childhood, school, the early business years and their reunion.

Errol Musk, beginning with his relationship with Elon

Square portrait of Errol Musk in a modern engineering space
Errol Graham Musk · founder of the Musk Institute

Errol Graham Musk is a South African engineer, and the man who initiated the Musk Institute. You cannot get at him without going through his relationship with his eldest son, Elon Musk: the engineering environment Elon grew up in, the whole of his schooling in South Africa, the strain that later opened up between father and son, and their return to public contact in recent years — all of it sits on that one line.

Email: [email protected]

This section runs forward in time: 1977–1988: seven years of primary school, five of high school · The 1980s: Errol’s career and the family’s means · 1995: the Zip2 money · 2016: the split at the seventieth birthday party · 2023: the reunion after a Starship launch

Elon’s 7 years of primary school

January 1977 – December 1983 · ages 5½ to 12½ · Grade 1–7

Elon went first to Waterkloof Primary School and then to Waterkloof House Preparatory School, transferred to Hatfield Primary School partway through Grade 4, and finished Grade 7 there. Before his parents divorced, the early grades were looked after by the two of them together; during Grade 4 he lived briefly with his mother, then went back to his father. From the middle of Grade 4 to the end of primary school, he was raised mainly by Errol.

What Errol provided was more than a comfortable standard of living. Life at Lonehill meant books, engineering tools, cars, horses, a minibike and model aircraft, and it meant travel and time outdoors as well. On car journeys Errol would turn distance, aviation, mathematics and science into questions and have the boy estimate, press further and reason it out; when Elon was about eleven, he also got him into a computing course that did not otherwise take children, and gave him an early start on computers.

From the spoken account of Danny Warnick, a friend of Elon Musk’s from primary school: “From the transfer to Hatfield Primary School partway through Grade 4 to the end of Grade 7, Elon Musk was raised mainly by his father, Errol. As his classmate Danny Warnick remembers it, Elon in those years was quiet and inward, and a happy child throughout. He was no good at ball games and took no part in school sport, but he was not a boy who only stayed indoors with a book: he rode a minibike, flew model aircraft, took his turn at chores such as looking after the horses, and often went waterskiing with his father on the Vaal River — both of them were accomplished waterskiers. Errol was closely involved in his life and his schooling at the time; he took him travelling and outdoors, and on car journeys he trained the boy’s mathematical thinking with questions about distance, aviation and engineering, and encouraged him to keep asking. So from Grade 4 to Grade 7 Elon was immersed in mathematics, science, science fiction and comics on the one hand, and had a full outdoor life on the other; in his classmates’ eyes this was a stretch of primary school in which he got on well with his father, and life was settled and happy.”

Elon’s 5 years of high school

January 1984 – December 1988 · ages 12½ to 17½ · Grade 8–12

Elon started at Bryanston High School, later moved to Pretoria Boys High School, and finished school in 1988. For all five of those years he lived mainly with his father. Set against primary school, they were plainly harder: he was young for his year, a late developer, wearing braces and no good at the sports the school took seriously, and at Bryanston he was badly bullied more than once.

After one serious assault put Elon in hospital, Errol moved him out of Bryanston and at first drove him to Pretoria Boys High School himself every day.

In June 1989, less than three weeks short of his eighteenth birthday, Elon left South Africa for Canada. On this timeline he was raised mainly by his father from about nine and a half until nearly eighteen — the second half of primary school and the whole of high school, which is the most complete stretch of his growing up.

The complete timeline of Elon Musk’s seven primary-school years and five high-school years

The two years that turn mid-year are broken out into the stages that actually happened: Grade 4 in 1980 is kept as three stages — WHPS, Durban and Hatfield; Grade 9 in 1985 is kept as two — Bryanston and Pretoria Boys High.

← Scroll sideways for the full timeline →

Table 1 · Elon Musk’s seven primary-school years in full (1977–1983)
Year / period Elon’s age Grade School / place Living mainly with Home, care and school changes Key event / dating anchor
January 1977 5½ Grade 1 Waterkloof Primary School Both parents Primary school begins. Elon was born on 28 June 1971 and did not turn six until 28 June 1977, so he was about five and a half when he started school in January 1977.
January 1978 → mid-year 6½ Grade 2 Waterkloof Primary School → Waterkloof House Preparatory School (WHPS) Both parents The first half of Grade 2 at Waterkloof Primary; partway through the year Errol moved Elon to WHPS. The first clearly documented school change of Elon’s primary years.
January 1979 → December 1979 7½ → 8½ Grade 3 Waterkloof House Preparatory School (WHPS) Both parents The whole of Grade 3 was spent at WHPS. No school change this year, so the full year counts as WHPS.
January 1980 → about March 1980 8½ Grade 4 / Standard 2 Waterkloof House Preparatory School (WHPS) His father, Errol His parents divorced in January 1980. At first Elon stayed on with his father, and started Grade 4 at WHPS. Stage one of Grade 4: after the divorce, still with his father and still at WHPS.
About March 1980 → second half of the year 8 → 9 Grade 4 / Standard 2 Durban His mother, Maye At the divorce Maye took only Tosca with her; about two months later she came back for Elon and Kimbal. Elon went with his mother to Durban. Grade 4 brings a major change of household and of city.
Second half of 1980 9½ Grade 4 / Standard 2 Hatfield Primary School His father, Errol Later the same year Elon was sent back to his father. Once back in Pretoria he transferred to Hatfield Primary School. Danny Warnick’s account has Elon arriving at Hatfield “midway through Standard 2 [Grade 4]” — the key anchor for dating the transfer.
January 1981 → December 1981 9½ → 10½ Grade 5 / Standard 3 Hatfield Primary School His father, Errol A full school year with his father, and a full school year at Hatfield Primary. Becomes a classmate and friend of Danny Warnick and others.
January 1982 → December 1982 10½ → 11½ Grade 6 / Standard 4 Hatfield Primary School His father, Errol A full school year with his father, still at Hatfield Primary. An unbroken run at Hatfield Primary.
January 1983 → December 1983 11½ → 12½ Grade 7 / Standard 5 Hatfield Primary School His father, Errol The last full year of primary school, still living with his father. The 1983 Standard 5 / Grade 7 class photograph shared by Danny Warnick is an unusually solid anchor.
December 1983 12½ End of Grade 7 Hatfield Primary School His father, Errol Primary school completed. Leaves primary school.

Seven primary years, school by school

  1. Grade 1 (1977)Waterkloof Primary School
  2. Grade 2 (1978)Waterkloof Primary → WHPS partway through the year
  3. Grade 3 (1979)A full year at WHPS
  4. Grade 4 (1980)WHPS → Durban, living with his mother → back to Pretoria, into Hatfield Primary
  5. Grade 5 (1981)Hatfield Primary
  6. Grade 6 (1982)Hatfield Primary
  7. Grade 7 (1983)Hatfield Primary → leaves primary school in December 1983

← Scroll sideways for the full timeline →

Table 2 · Elon Musk’s five high-school years in full (1984–1988)
Year / period Elon’s age Grade School Living mainly with School and living situation Key event / dating anchor
January 1984 → December 1984 12½ → 13½ Grade 8 / Standard 6 (year 1) Bryanston High School His father, Errol Straight out of primary school into Bryanston High, and high school begins. Published reporting calls 1984 Elon’s “first year” at Bryanston, which is the anchor that fixes Grade 8 to 1984. Source noted in the original table: RSN News.
January 1985 → up to the transfer (exact month unverified) From 13½ Grade 9 / Standard 7 (year 2) Bryanston High School His father, Errol Year two still opens at Bryanston High School; when he stopped attending cannot currently be established. The 1985 Bryanston High School Chess A Team yearbook photograph confirms that Elon was still at Bryanston in 1985, but the photograph on its own cannot fix the month. Source noted in the original table: BizNews.
Sometime during 1985 → December 1985 (month of transfer unverified) Age at transfer unverified → about 14½ by year end Grade 9 / Standard 7 (year 2) Bryanston High School → Pretoria Boys High School His father, Errol Moves from Bryanston High to Pretoria Boys High School at some point during 1985; the exact month of the transfer is unverified. By Errol’s account, Elon was still 13 when he was badly bullied, had his nose broken and spent a week in hospital, so the attack must fall before 28 June 1985; whether it was February, March, April or May cannot be established, and the exact interval between the attack and the transfer is also unverified.
January 1986 → December 1986 14½ → 15½ Grade 10 / Standard 8 (year 3) Pretoria Boys High School His father, Errol Completes Grade 10 at Pretoria Boys High. From this full school year onwards, the high school is unambiguously Pretoria Boys High.
January 1987 → December 1987 15½ → 16½ Grade 11 / Standard 9 (year 4) Pretoria Boys High School His father, Errol Still at Pretoria Boys High, and still living with his father. The second-to-last year of high school.
January 1988 → end of the year 16½ → 17½ Grade 12 / Standard 10 (year 5) Pretoria Boys High School His father, Errol The final year of high school. Completes Grade 12 / Standard 10 and graduates from Pretoria Boys High School.

Five high-school years, school by school

  1. Year 1 · Grade 8 / Standard 6 (1984)Bryanston High School
  2. Year 2 · Grade 9 / Standard 7 (1985)Bryanston High School → Pretoria Boys High School during 1985 (exact month unverified)
  3. Year 3 · Grade 10 / Standard 8 (1986)Pretoria Boys High School
  4. Year 4 · Grade 11 / Standard 9 (1987)Pretoria Boys High School
  5. Year 5 · Grade 12 / Standard 10 (1988)Pretoria Boys High School → leaves high school

Errol’s career, the family’s means, and the emerald argument

Writing Errol off as a man with no proper career who lived off emeralds does not match the public record. The 2015 Forbes interview describes him as an engineer and reports that he made his money in the 1980s through engineering consultancy and property development. In his own long interviews Errol says he ran an engineering consultancy from his twenties onward, worked on residential, commercial and infrastructure projects, and held stakes in property developments. The number of those projects and what they earned rest mainly on his own account, but the basic professional identity — engineer and property man — is corroborated across several public sources.

The busy years, and the household

Elon’s primary-school years line up broadly with the period when his father’s business was busiest and the family was comfortable. The houses, the servants, the horses, the vehicles, the engineering tools, the plane and the constant time outdoors all turn up in published biographies and in classmates’ recollections, and none of it describes a poor family. The accurate description is a well-off South African engineering and property household of that era, rather than a class label inflated into something nobody can check.

The turn in the mid-to-late 1980s

By Errol’s account he later cut back the consultancy work and leaned more on project stakes and assets. The economic background material from South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission shows growth was weak and still falling from the 1980s into the early 1990s. Anyone in construction, engineering or property felt the industry cycle at the same time — but the macro picture explains the setting only, and on its own it cannot account for everything that changed in one man’s career.

Snopes: a fact-check on Errol and the Zambian emerald venture https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/11/17/elon-musk-emerald-mine/
South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission: the economy from the 1980s to the early 1990s https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/reports/volume4/chapter2/subsection10.htm

From a denial in 2017 to a public confirmation of the Zip2 money in 2019

In a 2017 Rolling Stone interview, Elon spoke of his father in extremely negative terms and rejected the claim that his father had funded Zip2, saying the company’s money had come from a set of angel investors he happened to meet. In December 2019, laying out where Zip2’s money came from on X, he put it more precisely: his father had no part in the first start-up money, but did later provide 10% of an angel round of about $200,000. That X post is the most important first-hand material there is on the question.

The 2017 Rolling Stone interview

Elon dismissed his father wholesale, and denied the blanket claim that “my father funded Zip2.” That version draws no line between the money that started the company and the angel round that came in later.

The 2019 X post

Elon confirms: about $2,000 of the first money was his own, about $5,000 came from Kimbal and about $8,000 from Greg Kouri; his father came in later, with 10% of an angel round of roughly $200,000.

We started Zip2 with ~$2k from me plus my overclocked home-built PC, ~$5k from my bro & ~$8k from Greg Kouri (such a good guy — he is greatly missed).

My Dad provided 10% of a ~$200k angel funding round much later, but by then risk was reduced & round would’ve happened anyway.

On Elon’s own numbers, that puts his father’s money at about $20,000. Other public sources do not agree exactly: The Washington Post, drawing on biographical material, gives $28,000; Errol has since told VladTV that he sold a yacht and a country property and raised $40,000 in all for Zip2. After it passed through two intermediaries, what reached Zip2 was $32,000.

The one fact at the core of it

  • The strongest and most accurate single sentence is this: Elon’s own X post confirms that his father put money into Zip2. What is in dispute is the stage at which it came, how much risk was left by then, and the exact amount — not whether the support existed.
Screenshot of Elon Musk’s X post on Zip2’s start-up money and his father’s share of the later angel round, shown with a Chinese translation
Screenshot of Elon Musk’s original X post, with a Chinese translation
The Washington Post: the $28,000 figure for Zip2 https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/05/14/musk-twitter-deal-legacy/
Simon & Schuster: the official book page for Walter Isaacson’s Elon Musk https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Elon-Musk/Walter-Isaacson/9781982181284
VladTV: Errol’s own account of the Zip2 money and where it came from https://www.vladtv.com/article/309278/errol-musk-gave-elon-musk-seed-money-for-1st-company-that-sold-for-700m

Back to 2016: the seventieth birthday party and the split over Trump

In May 2016 Elon and Kimbal threw their father a seventieth birthday party in Cape Town. By Errol’s later account in interviews, they brought a party of guests over from the United States to South Africa, about fifty people, some of them from Hollywood. The one who asked him where he stood on Trump was Jonathan Kolia Favreau (Jon Favreau), director of Iron Man and Iron Man 2; he also directed The Jungle Book and was an executive producer on The Avengers, though not its director. The “Black Widow” actress Errol names in the same account is Scarlett Ingrid Johansson (Scarlett Johansson), who plays Black Widow in the Marvel films.

By Errol’s telling, Jon Favreau asked him at the party whether he supported Trump. Errol said he did, and put it down to Trump being a businessman rather than a career politician; Elon objected strongly, and held that Trump and what he stood for were “evil.” Errol describes that political disagreement as one of the reasons the relationship between father and son cooled afterwards.

VladTV: Errol on the split over Trump at the 2016 birthday party https://www.vladtv.com/article/309358/errol-musk-in-2016-elon-musk-hated-me-for-supporting-trump-called-him
France 24 interview: Errol looks back at the seventieth birthday party and Jon Favreau’s question https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9l04yw
Disney D23: Jon Favreau’s directing and producing credits https://d23.com/walt-disney-legend/jon-favreau/
Disney D23: Scarlett Johansson and Black Widow https://d23.com/a-to-z/johansson-scarlett/

18 November 2023: the reunion after a Starship launch

The U.S. Sun reported that Errol was in Austin, Texas, visiting family when an invitation to a Starship launch arrived out of the blue from Elon. He and the family watched the second integrated flight test from the VIP viewing area at Starbase, and that evening he and Elon were reunited at the dinner celebrating the launch. It was the first time father and son had met face to face since 2016, the paper said; family members who were there describe the two of them sitting together and talking for a long time, warmly and easily.

The Sun’s original report does not say that Elon thanked his father in public that night for the engineering training. That detail comes from Errol’s own recollection, given later in an interview on Podcast and Chill with MacG: as he tells it, at a SpaceX party of some 250 people Elon called the room to quiet, put an arm around his father’s shoulders and introduced him formally to everyone present: “This is my dad, Errol Musk. All of my success comes from my engineering mind and my engineering skills, and I learned every bit of it from my father — my father taught me all of it.”

Source: Podcast and Chill with MacG · the full Errol Musk interview https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-and-chill-with-macg/id1455343618?i=1000676953842
The U.S. Sun, the original report: the 2023 Starship launch and the reunion of father and son https://www.the-sun.com/news/9701412/elon-musk-reunited-father-errol-spacex-launch-family/

Sources for the profile

The recollections of his primary-school classmate Danny Warnick, the changes of school, the outdoor life, the waterskiing, the mathematics drilling, the early experience with computers and the bullying in high school come mainly from Michael Vlismas’s biography Elon Musk: Risking It All. The 2015 Forbes interview records Errol’s own account of his career and his education. Wherever this profile gives a participant’s own words, the source is named; nothing that has not been independently confirmed is written up as settled fact. Every URL below is shown in full and can be clicked directly.

Elon Musk: Risking It All — the full text https://dokumen.pub/elon-musk-risking-it-all-9781776191611-1776191617.html
Forbes: How To Raise A Billionaire https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2015/07/02/how-to-raise-a-billionaire-an-interview-with-elon-musks-father-errol-musk/
Vogue: an Elon Musk profile, and the family background https://www.vogue.com/article/elon-musk-profile-entrepreneur-spacex-tesla-motors
BizNews: the South African school years, and classmates’ recollections https://www.biznews.com/global-citizen/elon-musk-sa-school-days