They don’t agree: Elon Musk (r.) and his father Errol Musk (l.). GIANLUIGI GUERCIA/AFP via Getty Images and Chesnot/Getty Images
Elon Musk says his father once called him “worthless” after he was beaten at school.
Musk recounted this experience in Walter Isaacson’s new biography.
His father, Errol Musk, disputed this account in a statement to Business Insider.
This is a machine translation of an article from our US colleagues at Insider. It was automatically translated and checked by a real editor. We welcome feedback at the end of the article.
Elon Musk and his father, Errol Musk, have conflicting accounts about the elder Musk’s reaction to an attack at school. The two agreed that the attack was so severe that Elon Musk had to be hospitalized.
The story was told in Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Elon Musk, now is the richest person in the world. Isaacson writes that Musk was often bullied at school because he was “the youngest and smallest student in his class,” adding that Musk lacked empathy and a desire to make friends.
Read too
Mr. Nice Guy: Elon Musk was originally going to be named after the French city where he was conceived
Isaacson then described an altercation in which a student playing with his friends bumped into Musk, after which Musk pushed him back and the two exchanged words. The boy and his friends later jumped on Musk during recess, Isaacson wrote, and pushed him down a concrete staircase.
“They sat on him and just kept beating him and kicking him in the head,” Musk’s brother, Kimbal Musk, who had been sitting with him, told Isaacson.
“By the time they were done, I couldn’t even see his face,” he said, “It was such a swollen lump of flesh that you could barely see his eyes.”
Isaacson wrote that although Musk had a nose job decades after the beating, “the scars were insignificant compared to the emotional scars inflicted on him by his father,” who, speaking to Isaacson for the book, described the attack on his son seemed to justify.
Read too
“His head hit the table”: Elon Musk is said to have drunk himself unconscious at a meeting with Russians – he actually wanted to buy rockets
Errol Musk told Isaacson: “The boy had just lost his father to suicide and Elon had called him stupid. Elon had a tendency to call people stupid. How could I blame the child?”
However, the elder Musk’s account differs from his sons’ regarding what happened when Elon Musk came home from the hospital. The Musk brothers say Errol Musk insulted his son: “I had to watch for an hour as he yelled at me, called me an idiot and told me that I was just worthless,” said Elon Musk.
Kimbal Musk described this to Isaacson as the worst memory of his life: “My dad just went crazy, like he often does,” he said. “He had zero compassion.”
Read too
After discussing population decline, Elon Musk suggested Neuralink director Shivon Zilis be their sperm donor
The brothers no longer speak to their father. Elon Musk told Rolling Stone last year 2017that his father was “a terrible person.”
“No, I didn’t insult Elon,” Errol Musk said in an email to Business Insider, “that’s nonsense. Elon was in the hospital for a few days. It wasn’t possible to do that and I wouldn’t have done it. I was shocked by the incident.”
He added that the boy involved was “much smaller than Elon” and that they were both around 12 or 13 years old.
Isaacson wrote that Errol Musk transferred Elon Musk from a public school to a private academy, Pretoria Boys High School, after the attack. Errol Musk reiterated this to Business Insider, saying he had “incurred the expense of purchasing another home in another city to accommodate Elon and Kimbal.”
Elon and Kimbal Musk’s mother, Maye, divorced Errol Musk in 1979. In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar, She described her marriage as abusive.
Elon Musks Ex-girlfriend Grimes Isaacson told Elon Musk’s experience with his father impacted future relationships have had.
“He associates love with meanness or abuse,” she told Isaacson, “It’s about his father and what he grew up with.”
Musk’s first wife, Justine Wilson, to whom he was married from 2000 to 2008, told Isaacson that Musk sometimes called her a “moron” or “idiot,” which she associated with Errol Musk.
External content not available
Your privacy settings prevent the loading and display of all external content (e.g. graphics or tables) and social networks (e.g. Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc.). To display this, please activate the settings for social networks and external content in the privacy settings .
Change privacy settings