Elon’s father is an engineer and like Elon, was born in South Africa. In the 2015 biography Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, author Ashlee Vance wrote that Elon and his dad had a difficult relationship. In an emotional 2017 Rolling Stone interview, Elon criticized his father and talked about his upbringing, saying that after his parents split, he moved in with his dad, which, he said, “was not a good idea.”
Errol told Rolling Stone, “I love my children and would readily do whatever for them.”
In a 2015 Forbes interview, Elon’s dad said he used to take his kids on trips overseas. “Their mother and I split up when they were quite young and the kids stayed with me,” he said. “I took them all over the world.”
After divorcing Elon’s mother Maye, Errol married Heide, mother of Jana Bezuidenhout, who was 4 years old at the time. Errol and Heidi went on to have two daughters together before they too broke up. In 2017, Errol and Jana had a baby together, son Elliot. They welcomed a second child, a daughter, in 2019.