Investigation“Elon Musk, an American hero” (2/6). Among the Musks, the maternal grandfather, Joshua Haldeman, is a tutelary figure. Libertarian, rebel to the established order, he went on an adventure with wife and children to South Africa in 1949. A model for the young Elon, whose feelings are divided between an adored mother and a father whom he will deny .
It was in Barcelona that in the summer of 2015, the Musk clan decided to meet for a week’s vacation. Elon’s five cousins, his brother, Kimbal, and his sister, Tosca, filmmaker, are present, and each pleasantly motto in the gardens of a good restaurant in the Catalan capital. Scott Haldeman, Elon Musk’s maternal uncle, is also there, and fondly remembers the meeting: “They were all in business. Five were CEOs, the other company executives. They were a team and talked quietly, as equals, whether they were billionaires or multibillionaires. They had in common that they started from nothing, with no money in their pockets. “
An embodiment of the American dream for this generation, originally from South Africa, who came to America in the 1990s. Or rather, loyalty to the legacy of Elon Musk’s maternal grandfather, also Scott’s father: “It was the recognition of the family culture: you can do what you want; if you have the talent, do it! “, says Scott Haldeman.
Among the Musks, Elon is a primus inter pares, the one of his generation who was the most successful. But it is the tutelary figure of the grandfather, Joshua Haldeman, who dominates. Elon, born June 28, 1971 in Pretoria, hardly knew him, having died in a plane crash in 1974, but, as Scott Haldeman explains in World from the office of his library in California, the real hero of the clan is him: “Elon has done extraordinary things industrially, but they are well worth what his grandfather did in the adventure field”, he sums up.
The epic of Joshua Haldeman tells the life of a free man, refusing the constraints, rebellious to certain forms of authority, a libertarian, one would say today. Of this Elon Musk undoubtedly inherited.
Joshua Haldeman (1902-1974) led a prosperous life on the frozen plains of Saskatchewan, Canada, until the crisis of 1929 hit. “ He lost everything during the Great Depression, including his big farm ”, says Scott Haldeman. His farm was seized because he could not repay the drafts of his tractor. It nourishes a terrible resentment against the financial circles, which one finds besides today in the distrust of Elon Musk vis-à-vis Wall Street.
“My father thought the forces of money orchestrated the Great Depression and World War II. He was very to the right, in that sense, explains Scott Haldeman, who describes a father who is not very religious. He read the Bible, but did not believe in any religion or any teaching in the matter. ”
You have 86.18% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
