It was clarified by Elon Musk’s biographer whether Errol Musk ever had ownership of an emerald mine.
Errol Musk, Elon Musk’s father, admitted to trading a jet for emeralds when Walter Isaacson spoke with him.
Errol never had a mine of his own; instead, he brought emeralds into South Africa and had them cut there.
It has long been believed that Errol Musk, Elon Musk’s father, owned an emerald mine in South Africa or at the very least had a 50% stake in one.
According to a version of the article that has been saved, Elon Musk revealed to online publication AskMen in 2014 that his father “had a share in an emerald mine in Zambia” during a phone chat.
The X owner has since walked back on that assertion, adamantly denying that his father ever had an emerald mine.
In response to a user on X, then known as Twitter, who claimed Errol had a mine, Elon Musk tweeted in 2019: “He didn’t own an emerald mine & I worked my way through college, ending up with $100k in student debt.”
Elon Musk remarked, “The fake emerald mine thing is so annoying (sigh),” in January when his mother, Maye Musk, tweeted a link to a CBS News report that made the same allegations.
Elon Musk was telling the truth, it turns out.
This week’s publication of Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk included a revelation that Errol Musk had never owned a mine.
He said that Errol Musk had a light aircraft in the 1980s and had traded some emeralds from the entrepreneur’s Zambian mine for it in 1986.
The mine was never registered, according to Elon Musk’s father, 77, who also claimed to have imported uncut emeralds and had them cut in Johannesburg.
Errol Musk admitted to the writer that “many people came to me with stolen parcels.” “I used to sell emeralds to jewelers while traveling abroad. Due to the fact that everything was illegal, it was a covert affair.
