Musk family

Maye's father Joshua N. Haldeman was a notable chiropractor, aviator, and politician who promoted technocracy and South African apartheid.

Musk is the wealthiest individual in the world; as of February 2025[update], Forbes estimates his net worth to be US$397 billion.

Musk was born to an affluent South African family in Pretoria before immigrating to Canada, acquiring its citizenship from his mother.

He moved to California in 1995 to attend Stanford University, and with his brother Kimbal co-founded the software company Zip2, which was acquired by Compaq in 1999.

[1] He met his first wife, Canadian author Justine Wilson, while attending Queen's University in Ontario, Canada; they married in 2000.

[17] Despite the pregnancy, Musk confirmed reports that the couple were "semi-separated" in September 2021; in an interview with Time in December 2021, he said he was single.

[22][23][24] In July 2022, Insider published court documents revealing that Musk had had his eighth and ninth children, twins born via IVF with Shivon Zilis, director of operations and special projects at Neuralink, in November 2021.

[27][28] Also in July 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk allegedly had an affair with Nicole Shanahan, the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, in 2021, leading to their divorce the following year.

In 2022, she came out as a trans woman and officially changed her name,[34] adopting her mother's surname because she no longer wished to be associated with Musk.

[37][38] She expressed that Musk was "cold", "quick to anger", "uncaring and narcissistic", and that his infrequent visits commonly involved him berating her for being feminine.

[41][42] Musk blamed the estrangement on what the Financial Times characterized as "the supposed takeover of elite schools and universities by neo-Marxists", and has said that Vivian's gender transition is primarily what sparked his drive to "destroy the woke mind virus".

[43][44] In a July 2024 episode of Jordan Peterson's podcast, Musk said that he had "lost [his] son, essentially" because of gender-affirming care.

[53] Musk had a lucrative engineering business which took on "large projects such as office buildings, retail complexes, residential subdivisions, and an air force base."

He also owned an auto parts store, at least half a share in an emerald mine, and even "one of the biggest houses in Pretoria"[54][55] He was married to Maye Musk from 1970 to 1979.

[56][57] Maye's book recalls that at the time of the divorce, he owned two homes, a yacht, a plane, five luxury cars, and a truck.

Haldeman was an American-born Canadian chiropractor and political activist who, in the early days of formalized apartheid, moved to South Africa.

[68] Prior to the move, Haldeman headed the Canadian branch of Technocracy movement and ran for the Parliament of Canada on the Social Credit Party ticket.

[69][70] Over the course of his life, he publicly expressed racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-democratic views, promoted a number of conspiracy theories, and was a supporter of South Africa's apartheid system.

[75] He is the co-founder and chairman of Big Green, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has built hundreds of outdoor classrooms called Learning Gardens in schoolyards across America.

[76][77][78] Musk is also the co-founder and chairman of Square Roots, an urban farming company growing food in hydroponic, indoor, climate controlled shipping containers.

Her work includes K. Bromberg's Driven, Rachel van Dyken's Matchmaker's Playbook, and her web series, Tiki Bar TV.