Errol Musk slams 'jealous' relatives after New York Times accuses him of decades-long sexual abuse
Errol Musk, the father of Tesla owner and billionaire Elon Musk, has dismissed serious allegations of sexual abuse made against him by several family members as the work of “jealous people seeking some sort of satisfaction”.
The 79-year-old, who lives in Langebaan in the Western Cape, is the subject of a recent investigation by The New York Times, which reports multiple claims of abuse spanning more than 30 years. The alleged victims include five of Musk’s children and stepchildren.
Among the allegations is that of a stepdaughter with whom Musk later fathered a child.
According to the Times, the first reported incident dates back to 1993, when the stepdaughter — then four years old — allegedly told relatives that Musk had placed her in rubbish bins outside their home and touched her inappropriately.
The alleged incidents are reported to have occurred both in South Africa and California, in the United States.
Musk has denied the allegations, dismissing them as “nonsense”. He claimed the accusations were being driven by envy and a desire to hurt him and his son, Elon Musk.
The New York Times says it based its investigation on interviews with family members, friends, and previously unpublished legal documents. It’s not clear at this stage whether any criminal charges have been filed.
Almost 10 years later, she claimed she found Errol in her bedroom sniffing her dirty underwear.
Other family members have also accused him of abusing two of his daughters and a stepson, the Times reported.
As recently as 2023, family members and a social worker reportedly intervened after Errol’s then five-year-old son — the child he shares with his stepdaughter — said his father had groped him.
According to the Times, three separate police investigations were opened. Two were closed, and the outcome of the third remains unclear.
Errol, who has at least nine children and stepchildren and has been married three times, has never been convicted of any crime.
In an interview with IOL, Errol refuted the allegations, saying they came from “Jealous people seeking some sort of satisfaction”.
He said the New York Times had “a terrible reputation for false reporting and people know that,” and said it was too soon to decide whether he would take legal action.
Asked whether his family, including his son Elon, had contacted him after the story was published, he replied only, “Family interaction is confidential.”
Also asked how it affected him and the Musk family name, he told IOL, “It is fake so we just get on with our lives”.
He said that he had told the Times that these were allegations, which were rejected by two judges.
Errol denied that he had been sniffing his daughter’s underwear in the 2002 incident, when she was 13.
The case was reportedly reported to the Los Angeles police and Child Protective Services.
“She did not ‘catch me’ doing anything other than cleaning up her room.
“I had returned to Los Angeles the day before, after a month in SA.
“I found the house to be in a terrible state, and I was very angry. I vented on everyone.
“They did not like me returning, so they took their revenge, one might say. I returned to SA on my own, at my own cost.
“I was done with them all at that point.”
The Times said its reporting also showed that Errol then tried to keep Heide and her five children in the US and away from him, including by keeping their passports.
“That attempt was unsuccessful, and so the children and Heide went back to SA,” the Times said in its questionnaire.
“Heide-Mari and the children returned to me in SA almost immediately,” Errol responded.
“They did not want to stay in the US.They wanted to stay with me. I still owned a large home in Pretoria, which I subsequently [allegedly] sold to the government for the deputy president to stay in, whereafter we all decided to move away from fast-decaying Pretoria and live in Cape Town, which was still good.
“The march to Cape Town is now happening on a large scale in SA.
“The north is derelict in most places.”
The Times said around 2007, abuse claims surfaced involving two other children.
It said they were part of a case at the Malmesbury Magistrates’ Court.
It said one of the daughters also wrote a letter to Elon claiming that he had abused her.
Errol called it “absurd”.
“I did hear that Heide-Mari’s family and possibly Heide-Mari as well were trying to get money from Elon.”
It also said he tried to kiss his stepdaughter when she was home from college in 2009, then an adult.
“This is false,” he said.
“One Friday night, I stayed over at the house I had given Heide-Mari, after bringing Alexandra back from boarding school.
“I stayed in the spare room.
“[She] came to my room during the night. I was awoken by the light.
“I asked [her] what she wanted, and she literally pounced on me.
“She smelled of alcohol. I remained lying on my back throughout … the next day she told her mother I had lured her to my room.”
@nytimes Elon Musk’s father, Errol Musk, has been accused of sexually abusing five of his children and stepchildren since 1993, a New York Times investigation found. Family members have appealed to Elon Musk for help. Video by John Eligon, Kirsten Grind, Karen Hanley, June Kim and Stephanie Swart. #ErrolMusk#ElonMusk ♬ original sound – The New York Times
It also put it to him that in 2023, family members called the Langebaan and Durbanville police stations after he said he had groped and touched his behind.
It said prosecutors declined to prosecute the case because of insufficient evidence.
IOL reached out to the police regarding the alleged incident.
“There was no evidence because this is nonsense,” Errol said in response to The Times.
Addressing some of the claims with IOL, Errol said his stepdaughter never claimed she caught him sniffing her underwear.
“That’s just made up … there have been no investigations.
“They made that up.
“No one ever accused me of abusing my daughters and stepson which is made up in the [Times] article.
“My [then-]five-year-old son never said anything of the kind that was made up.
“What five-year-old knows the word ‘grope’? There were no police investigations. They made that up.”
He added: “You cannot take the New York Times seriously … they made it all up.”
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