Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has faced criticism on social media over claims that his family’s wealth was built on the back of an emerald mine in Zambia. While some supporters of Musk have disputed the claim, others have celebrated it. Recently, Musk posted on Twitter to offer some critical context regarding the issue.
The emerald mine story was initially reported in 2018 by Business Insider South Africa, based on comments from Errol Musk, Elon Musk’s father. According to Errol, Elon and his brother Kimbal had at one time sold a pair of emeralds to Tiffany’s in New York City for about $2,000, and the Musk family was so wealthy that they had difficulty closing their safe.
However, the story’s veracity was questioned as it could not be confirmed by Elon due to his complicated history with his father.
In a 2014 interview with Forbes, Elon Musk confirmed that his father had a share in an emerald mine in Zambia. However, in December 2019, Musk denied that his father owned an emerald mine. In his recent Twitter post, he clarified that he believed his father’s claim at the time, but there is no objective evidence that the mine ever existed. Musk also shared some thoughts on his complicated relationship with his father and the condition for providing him with financial support.
Maye Musk, Elon’s mother, also weighed in on the issue, saying she was made aware of the emerald mine story on Twitter about ten years ago. She also highlighted that when she and her children moved to Toronto in 1989, they stayed at a one-bedroom apartment and later a rent-controlled unit, hardly the accommodations of an extremely wealthy family from South Africa.
Whether or not Musk’s recent post on Twitter is entirely truthful is still up for debate. Nonetheless, it does explain why his comments and stance on his father’s emerald mine stake have changed over the years.
If his post is accurate, then it is true that he believed that his father had a share in an emerald mine in the past, but he is now skeptical of the claim. So his recent comments, including offering 1 million Dogecoins to anyone who can trace the mine related to his father, would make sense in this context.