Elon Musk’s Childhood in South Africa

Elon Musk attended a whites-only school in South Africa, when the country was in the apartheid era.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a top ally of President Donald Trump, is an immigrant to the United States. He was born in Pretoria, the administrative capital of South Africa, in 1971 and spent his childhood in the African country.

For his secondary education, Musk attended Bryanston School, an all-white school in South Africa. The school was founded in 1968 in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, and was coeducational and taught in English. Sports were taken seriously at Bryanston.

Elon Musk (far left, bottom row), a member of the chess team at Bryanston High School in 1985. Photo: Bryanston High School Yearbook

“The atmosphere on campus was reminiscent of American society,” said Lesley Burns, who graduated from Bryanston in 1984, Musk’s first year. “It was full of athletes and popular guys on the football team.”

Musk’s mother, Maye Haldeman, said her son was the “smallest” student in his class, making him a target for bullies. He was pushed down stairs and beaten so badly that he had to be hospitalized.

“They sat on him, punching and kicking him repeatedly in the body and head. When they left, I didn’t recognize him anymore. His face was swollen, I couldn’t see his eyes,” Musk’s brother Kimbal, who was present at the time of the beating, revealed in 2023.

The school declined to comment. Elon Musk’s father, Errol Musk, then transferred his two sons to Pretoria Boys’ School, where Musk was welcomed by all his classmates, according to Gideon Fourie, who took a computer science class with Musk.

“He was a normal person, not like a super athlete, or a super nerd, or a super rebel… He hung out with a group of friends,” Fourie recalls.

Elon Musk (second row, second from left), at Pretoria High School in 1988. Photo: Pretoria High School

Pretoria School is located near Errol Musk’s mansion in Waterkloof, a wealthy suburb of Pretoria that is awash in jacarandas every spring.

South Africa was rocked by a series of uprisings as apartheid entered its final stages. In 1984, black townships across the country revolted. By 1986, the white-controlled government had declared a state of emergency. But life in the white-segregated areas was peaceful and prosperous.

“While the rest of the country was in flames and chaos, we were safe in our leafy suburbs, going about our normal lives,” said Jonathan Steward, who was a grade above Musk at Pretoria Boys’ School.

Pretoria College, founded in 1901, is a model of a British-style private school in South Africa. In addition to Elon Musk, the school has educated many famous people such as British Labour politician Peter Hain, 2021 Booker Prize-winning novelist Damon Galgut, and former Paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius.

In 1981, it became the first public school to admit black students. Malcolm Armstrong, the principal at the time, took advantage of a loophole that allowed the school to admit black boys who were the children of diplomats.

“It was a great time, because there was no crime. There were no problems. Everyone got along, black and white,” Errol Musk said from his home in Cape Town when asked about Elon Musk’s childhood. “Everything was fine. It was true. Of course, people don’t want to hear that, but it’s true.”

Musk left South Africa in 1989 for his mother’s home country of Canada, before emigrating to the United States. Some former classmates have suggested that Musk’s current views on South Africa may be influenced by the fact that he left South Africa during negotiations to end apartheid, before Nelson Mandela, president of the African National Congress (ANC), became the country’s first black president in 1994.

Last month, Mr Musk posted on social media platform X, criticising “openly racist laws” in his native South Africa and claiming that “white South Africans are being persecuted for their ethnicity at home”.

Following Musk’s post, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order accusing the South African government of unfair racial discrimination against the Afrikaner people (a white ethnic group descended from European settlers), cutting aid to South Africa, which receives 17% of the US’s HIV/AIDS prevention budget, and granting asylum to the Afrikaner people.

It’s unclear how much of an impact Musk had when President Trump issued the order. But given that Musk is one of the president’s closest advisers, it’s likely that he expressed his views on South Africa to Trump, given his history in his former homeland.

Mr Musk said the land reform law signed by South African President Cyril Ramaphosab in January was racist and “nothing short of theft”.

Land ownership has long been a contentious issue in South Africa, where whites, who make up just 7% of the population, own more than 70% of the country’s agricultural land, even though apartheid ended 30 years ago. Under new laws, the South African government can expropriate land for public benefit without compensation.

Musk’s rise to become one of the most powerful figures in American politics has prompted a more vocal response from South Africa’s white community back home. In mid-February, hundreds gathered outside the US embassy in Pretoria, carrying signs that read “Thank God for President Trump” and “Make South Africa Great Again.”