Elon Musk’s father has been accused of sexually abusing at least five of his children over the last three decades, according to a New York Times investigation.
Warning: This article contains details which may be upsetting for some readers.
The outlet reviewed multiple police reports, spoke to social workers and family members to uncover the allegations against 79-year-old Errol Musk.
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 Musk sniffing her dirty underwear.
The same former stepdaughter — whose mother married Mr 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 which members said had torn the Musk family apart for years.
Some have turned to Elon Musk, 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 Musk has not been convicted of any crime.
'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 Mr Rubin, had long been surrounded by "silence, discomfort, and speculation".
Elmie Smit, whose sister, Heide-Mari Bezuidenhout, was Errol Musk’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," Ms 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," Ms 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 Ms Smit, confronted Errol Musk.
"He burst into tears," Ms 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 Musk has said he was given custody of the child following the divorce, a claim which could not be verified.
Two years later, Ms Smit said, the girl attempted to "throw herself off the roof", saying she had been abused again.
Ms Bezuidenhout remarried Mr Musk in 1999, and the pair had another daughter in 2001.
In 2002, the stepdaughter, then 14, went into her bedroom in the family’s $US2 million ($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 Musk explored potential legal guardianship of the children and moved his father back to South Africa.
Multiple accusations of abuse levelled against Musk patriarch
Errol Musk was also accused directly of abusing his two daughters and his stepson in an interim protection order filed by the former stepdaughter in 2009.
[related] "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 Ms Bezuidenhout to Elon Musk 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 Musk and did not live with Errol Musk.
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 Musk.
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.
Elon Musk and his lawyer have not responded to requests for comment.
In an email to the Times, Errol Musk called the allegations "false and nonsense in the extreme".
He said 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.
Three marriages and a relationship with a former stepdaughter
Errol Musk married his first wife, Maye Haldeman in 1970.
That first marriage produced his oldest three children — Elon, Kimbal and Tosca Musk.
Errol Musk and Maye Musk divorced in 1979, with Maye later making several allegations of domestic violence.
Elon Musk, 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 Musk, who had then contacted her entire family to say she had accepted.
"They didn’t know I was seeing him, and I wasn’t," she said.
"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 Musk has denied these allegations.
He 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 Musk has claimed both of her children are his.
She has said only one of them is Errol Musk’s child.
"This is a wound that has festered for a very long time,” Ms 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?'"
'Almost every evil thing you can think of, he has done'
The relationship between Elon Musk 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 Musk 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.
"He seemed very sad and lonely by himself," he said.
"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 Musk has described his father as "brilliant", he has also described him as "evil".
[related] "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 Musk 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 Musk to intervene in his father’s behaviour.
Several times Mr Musk’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 Musk said he "did not have a happy childhood".
He and his brother, according to Mr Musk, had agreed to support their father on the condition he not engage in "bad behaviour".
"Unfortunately, he nonetheless did," he said.
