Elon Musk’s commitment to having as many children as possible before he jets off to Mars is, apparently, an inherited family trait. It brings me absolutely no joy to inform you that his estranged father, Errol Musk, just confirmed he welcomed a girl with his former stepdaughter, Jana Bezuidenhout, three years ago, saying, “The only thing we are on Earth for is to reproduce.” (Sound familiar?)
This is Errol’s seventh child and his second with his former stepdaughter. The two also share a 5-year-old son born in 2017 but are apparently not together. “It’s not practical. She’s 35,” he reportedly told The Sun about their decision not to live together. Errol is 76. “Any man who marries a [younger] woman, even if you feel very sprightly, it’s going to be nice for a while, but there’s a big gap … and that gap is going to show itself.”
Errol married Jana’s mother, Heide Bezuidenhout, when Jana was 4. The two were married for 18 years and had two children together. It’s unclear what Errol and Jana’s relationship was like as stepfather and stepdaughter, though Errol told the Sunday Times in 2018 that he didn’t really consider Jana his stepdaughter because she was “raised away from the family for long periods.” He said he and Jana reconnected in 2017 (about eight years after he divorced her mother). “We were lonely, lost people,” he said, as reported by E! News. “One thing led to another — you can call it God’s plan or nature’s plan.” At the time, he called Jana “a delightful girl and a wonderful mother.”
It’s unclear how involved Errol is in his children’s lives. (Like father, like son, I guess.) He told The Sun that Jana and their two kids had stayed with him in South Africa earlier this year. “Jana came and spent a few days here about six months ago. And the kids were starting to get on my nerves,” he said. “Then I miss them as soon as they have gone.”
Errol said he hasn’t asked for a paternity test for his youngest daughter because “she looks just like my other daughters.” Two of those daughters just so happen to be Jana’s half-sisters, and no, they are not pleased by this family development. “They still don’t like it,” Errol said. “They still feel a bit creepy about it, because she’s their sister. Their half-sister.” Shocking!
As far as whether he’s done trying to populate the planet, Elon’s dad said anything was possible. He might even already have kids he doesn’t know about. “I have about six people, women who claim that their child is my child right now,” he said, calling them “opportunists.” However, he said, “There was a period in Johannesburg in the ’80s that I was going out with a different woman every night. I had plenty of dates. So it’s quite conceivable that one of them could actually come back and say, ‘This is your child.’”
Elon, who recently confirmed welcoming twins with Shivon Zilis, a top executive at one of his companies, has not commented on his 3-year-old half-sibling.
