As tech mogul Elon Musk prepares to step into a new political role in the next Trump adminsitration, his dad Errol seemed proud about his son's transition from left-wing to right-wing politics

Speaking to the MailOnline, Errol said he’s proud to watch his son “accepting who he is”. He said: "I think for the first time Elon was accepting who he is. Until recently, he’s been a sort of character on a stage.

“When you come from South Africa, Lefties think you’re a Nazi. To succeed, you need to be accepted by them so my sons, [Elon and younger brother Kimbal, a hugely successful restaurateur], started to become these flaming liberals – turning away from South Africa and their roots, which included me. Finally, Elon was embracing his heritage and his destiny.”

In a separate interview, Errol explained how right-wing poltics were at the core of his family’s history. Elon’s maternal grandparents relocated from Canada to South Africa in the early 1900s as they knew the Afrikaner government was a stronghold of support for Nazism outside of Germany.

"They used to support Hitler and all that sort of stuff. But they didn’t know, I don’t think they knew what the Nazis were doing. But they [the grandparents] were in the German Nazi party but in Canada. And they sympathise with the Germans. "

  • JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world
    181·
    8 hours ago

    Elon’s maternal grandparents relocated from Canada to South Africa in the early 1900s as they knew the Afrikaner government was a stronghold of support for Nazism outside of Germany.

    This sentence is a mess.

    The Nazi part wasn’t formed until the 1920s.

    South Africa was run by the British in the early 20th century. The Afrikaners were at this point, completely disenfranchised after the Boer War.

    It wasn’t until the 1940s under the National party (yes, there were named after the German National party !). that the Afrikaners and English began to share power.

    BTW, the apartheid system was designed with the help of an Indian lawyer you may have heard of - Mahatma Ghandi.

      • floofloof@lemmy.caEnglish
        11·
        7 hours ago

        It’s The Mirror reporting on The Daily Mail, so it has been through two rounds of incoherent tabloid garbling. We can’t really know what to make of it unless we can find a better source for Musk’s family history. This particular claim about when and why his grandparents moved to South Africa isn’t in the Mail interview and The Mirror doesn’t name a source for it except “a separate interview.”

        However, we can be fairly certain that Elon and his dad are both nasty pieces of work:

        ‘Elon thinks woke is a joke. He’s said it’s got to end. I forget his exact words, but he’s starting a war on woke. He says woke has taken his oldest son from him.’

        He’s referring to Elon’s trans daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson, who he’s said on ‘X’ has been ‘killed by the woke mind virus’.

        Edit: Turns out Musk’s maternal grandparents moved to South Africa in 1950, not the early 1900s:

        Elon Musk’s Anti-Semitic, Apartheid-Loving Grandfather

        Archive: https://archive.is/x3OYY