“For most of my adult life, I always had this pain in my gut. But because I had to survive, and I had to pay the rent, I needed a roof over our head and food for us to eat, and some clothes.” Those are the words of Maye Musk, mother of the world’s richest man, Elon Musk. It may sound like the woman who rules magazine covers and looks like royalty was never introduced to hardship. But never judge a book by its cover. Maye, a former model, and her children learned what scarcity feels like, up close and daily.
It is truly astonishing that less than four decades ago Musk was depending on his mom to keep him afloat, and today he has been reported as the first person on Earth to touch a net worth of $600 billion, per Bloomberg. That number now rivals the GDP of entire countries. Sweden’s economy sits at roughly $600 billion, Israel’s at about $525 billion, and the UAE’s at around $500 billion. In other words, one man’s paper wealth now matches, or exceeds, the economic output of nation-states.
The 54-year-old Tesla boss has publicly called Maye his biggest supporter “from day one, no matter how crazy my ideas sounded.” He credited her with believing in him when everyone else thought he was out of his mind. But while this is a successful Elon talking about her support, back in the day that support meant something entirely different. It was not just belief. It was rent. It was groceries. It was survival.
To escape an unhappy domestic environment, Maye moved out with her children, Elon, Kimbal, and Tosca. As reported by El País, Maye and the children lived in a tiny apartment. And while her ex-husband, Errol, owned businesses, an emerald mine, two houses, a yacht, a plane, and several luxury cars, Maye and the children lived humbly, surviving on sandwiches and bean soup for dinner every single day.
Maye shared, “When I got divorced, I couldn’t afford to buy meat, fish or chicken. So I had to feed my children bean stew.” She also stated, “For a long time after I left my marriage, I had a pain in my gut. I was so terrified about not being able to feed my kids.” She added, “I left South Africa to live in Toronto… on my own with three young children and no income. I’d cry when they spilled milk because I didn’t have the money to buy any more.”
It is astonishing to picture Musk struggling only a handful of decades ago. While he climbed the ladder of success, Maye, who once worried about the food her kids ate, also grew to become a respected nutrition professional in Canada, even leading national dietitian groups. She saw Elon struggle in ways that feel almost impossible to square with the man he became: having only one suit as a young man because a second outfit was a luxury they could not afford.
She worried when a young Elon took on brutal, hazardous work in a Canadian boiler room, crawling through narrow tunnels and shoveling soot for $18 an hour, a job that left him covered in grime and exhaustion. And she has witnessed his growth from the son who wore discount-rack clothes and ate basic meals to the man who now commands rockets, global companies, and a fortune larger than anyone else on the planet.
Today, the contrast borders on surreal. The same family name that once meant bean stew and counting groceries now represents a personal fortune on par with nations. The boy raised on sandwiches and bean soup grew into the richest man on Earth by a huge margin, powered by a foundation built not on privilege, but persistence, a gift of a gifted mother!
Note – As of writing this article, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Elon Musk has a net worth of $638 billion, while Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg are worth $246 billion, $152 billion and $229 billion, respectively.
