In an exclusive interview with Forbes, cover girl, Dior Beauty muse, mother of the world’s richest man, Maye Musk opens up on raising a child prodigy and a life that most could only dream of – but it hasn’t always been full of luxury, glamour and success.
The famous septuagenarian shares her poignant story in her latest book “A Woman Makes a Plan: Advice for a Lifetime of Adventure, Beauty, and Success” (Thierry Souccar Editions), an opportunity for her to look back on her life of struggles. Page after page, it’s a formidable personal development guide for facing adversity. Universal and powerful, it offers lessons for everyone, enabling them to take charge of their own lives. Somewhere in this book, it’s about you…
Your book leaves the reader feeling like they can conquer the world! You could have given up a thousand times, but on the contrary, you have always shown resilience and optimism. How do you cultivate this mind of steel?
Maye Musk: I had no choice but to survive. When I left my husband and the father of my children, I needed to secure our future. I had to keep telling myself that there was only solution: to get out! We fall, we get up and we start again. If you are unhappy in your personal or professional life, come up with a plan and solutions to improve your life. You’re the only one who can do it, remember that! You can’t control everything that happens to you, but you can have the life you want at any age. All you need is a strategy. I’m living proof of that. Remember that you can always get out if you take things into your own hands.
“Having a plan” is the main theme of your book, the original title of which is “A Woman Makes a Plan”. But how do you come up with an effective plan when you’re navigating the unknown and facing one setback after another?
Learn to overcome difficulties! When I arrived in Canada with my meagre savings, I had to start over by going door to door to doctors to get them to agree to work with me. Nobody wanted me, a nutritionist fresh from South Africa, who wanted to offer her services to their patients. Despite my canvassing, unsolicited applications, and repeated telephone calls, I was ignored. So, I devised a plan to demonstrate the effectiveness of my expertise. I offered to carry out an experiment on patients to prove that there would be a before and after thanks to my support. My strategy paid off! They started booking me.
During all this time, I never gave up modelling because it allowed me to improve our financial situation.
And now, you are a cover girl, Maye Musk! How do you feel about being the model that everyone wants to be?
It’s a joy every day! I savour every moment. As the haute couture muse for Dior, the symbol of French refinement and chic, I feel like I’m living a daydream… When I had my children, it was already getting harder to find contracts, and as I approached forty, the final blow was dealt: the fashion industry made me invisible. Modelling wasn’t my main job, just a passion and a way to make some extra money. To be able to afford an economy class ticket to see my mother for example, to buy new clothes for my children and myself… So, my objective was to stay active in the industry. It didn’t matter what role I was given.
At 42, I was booked as a grandmother in a campaign, then asked to feature in ads for mattresses or aspirin tablets. There’s always a need for a woman with white hair to play these kinds of roles!
Isn’t that frustrating and revolting?! Studies consistently show that age is the primary factor in discrimination in the professional world. What advice would you give to women who do not want to see their career limited by their age?
From experience, I can tell you that it’s often men who start ignoring women of a certain age. Men who are often decision-makers because they monopolise positions of power. And that’s a fact. Women don’t have to slow down as they age: men don’t take their foot off the pedal! As for me, I explore everything, I have fun, I get busy. Don’t let age slow you down or stop you from moving forward. Take care of yourself as best you can by eating healthy, being active, smiling, and confident. Above all, don’t be afraid of ageing, because you can age very well today. I also invite women to surround themselves with inspiring, caring people.
“Learn to capitalise on social media. Today, your best business card is the content you share on these platforms.”
Maye Musk
Don’t accept going to work with a sinking feeling in your stomach – we spend so much time there! Turn the situation around, even if you think you won’t have anything left afterwards. Put your energy into finding something better. Also learn to capitalise on social media. Today, your best business card is the content you share on these platforms. Be creative, show who you are, your artistic talents, your athletic talents… Let those around you know about it. Everyone has a talent that they can share with others. I have a lot of fun on social media, I manage my Instagram account myself. Well, I admit that my fabulous assistant helps me make good reels and elaborate stories.
With social media, there is this other reality that has exacerbated the cult of appearance and superficiality… How can we exist in this world that has popularised unnatural “Barbie dolls” — in other words, a new norm that puts additional pressure on women?
Everyone has their own interpretation of happiness and thrives on that understanding. I won’t cast aspersions on those women who bet everything on their looks, at the cost of undergoing painful cosmetic surgery. They long for a Holy Grail and feel happier afterwards. Besides, it takes courage to inflict so much physical pain on yourself! An obsession with external beauty can generate anxiety if you’re not perfect. It can make you unhappy and prevent you from developing wonderful character traits such as intelligence or being fun and interesting.
When I arrived in the United States, I had to acculturate myself to the fact that beauty was a central issue, especially for women. I remember calling my twin sister Kaye to tell her about this American obsession with attaching everything to aesthetics (laughs).
Where I come from, a woman is valued for her intelligence, her sympathy, her sense of humour. Beauty is omnipresent in the United States, and it shapes a lot of things in the world. For me, it’s better to be interesting than beautiful. We shouldn’t try so hard to look like other people, we should be ourselves, be authentic. Even when I was a young model, I didn’t want to envy others: what mattered to me was gaining exposure, so my plan was to understand why some models were more booked than others so that I could be one of them. If a model’s career goes global, it’s because they exude something.
Be yourself because everyone else is already taken!
You’ve just mentioned Kaye, your beloved sister. Both of you have highly successful children in common! What is your secret?
We grew up with entrepreneurial parents, we saw the world through their eyes. Ok, these were not the type of entrepreneurs you’d find in your famous Forbes ranking, but they were nonetheless driven by the desire to make things happen, even if it meant taking risks. They also taught us that asking their children for their opinion can be a good idea. But also, to get out of your comfort zone. Very early on, I wanted my children to take my work into consideration. If you don’t work and you feel resentful about it, it won’t be very pleasant for them. From a young age, they helped me in my nutrition practice. In my office, Tosca typed letters for doctors, Elon was already very good at explaining word processing functions to us, and Kimbal made himself useful too. This early assumption of responsibility benefited them all.
I didn’t treat them like babies, they didn’t need to be protected from the reality that adults have to deal with. They saw me struggling to pay my bills, to fill the fridge. My children have not been accustomed to luxury and are not dependent on it. It will never be an end in itself for them.
So, I’ve always supported my children in their studies and their careers.
“All my children have done well, and Elon has done extraordinarily well.”
Maye Musk
Looking back, I realise that everything they do today was rooted in what they enjoyed as children. I love my three children deeply and am so proud of them! My eldest, Elon, makes electric cars to save the environment and launches rockets. My youngest son, Kimbal, has created farm-to-table restaurants. He visits underprivileged schools to teach young people how to plant fruits and vegetables. My daughter, Tosca, runs her own entertainment company, producing and directing romance films based on best-selling novels. They all have different interests.
Your son, Elon Musk, has an incredible fascination for people. Did you foresee such a destiny?
No. As a child, he was very shy and didn’t sleep much either, about 3 or 4 hours a night! At the age of 12, I noticed that he was reading everything. But above all, he absorbed what he read perfectly. At that time, we called him “The Encyclopedia” because, among other things, he had read “The Encyclopaedia Britannica” and memorised the whole thing! I suppose today we would call him “the Internet.” In fact, we realised that he was a child prodigy.
Do you believe in luck?
More in the small strokes of fate that have often blessed me at unexpected moments. There have been complete strangers along the way who have been kind to me. And when I think about it, I realise that it’s the reward I wasn’t expecting from my altruistic actions. Be kind and reach out to people without expecting anything in return. Trust me, karma will pay you back one day when you’re in a bad way. My book is full of stories like this!
If you could go back in time, what would you change?
If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t waste time thinking I could change a person to make them better for me. I’d stay away from evil people, and I wouldn’t accept being put down by people who think they’re better than me.
What else do you want to achieve?
Right now, I dream of seeing my book become a bestseller! My book “A Woman Makes a Plan” has been published in a hundred countries. Today, before we started the interview, I learned that my book is already a bestseller in Vietnam, Turkey, South Africa, and China. That fills me with joy!
And what’s your next plan?
To write a new book!
This story was first published on Forbes France.
