Elon Musk's mother recalls abusive marriage, refuses to criticize his dates citing her own 'poor record'
Elon Musk's mother, Maye Musk, who faced domestic abuse from ex-husband and Elon's father, Erron Musk, recently revealed that her kids were “never been impressed” with the people she chose to date.
Not claiming to be an expert in the dating game herself, the 71-year-old supermodel-turned-author told Page Six Wednesday, January 8, that “You make a plan in your life, and then things go wrong.” Her latest book is titled, “A Woman Makes A Plan: Advice for a Lifetime of Adventure, Beauty, and Success."
Maye recalled her marriage to be “physically and mentally abusive.” The couple were high school sweethearts and got married in 1971. Although they had three children together - SpaceX billionaire Elon, restauranteur Kimbal, filmmaker Tosca - their relationship was far from perfect. “I got married to a person who was aggressive, and then he said he would change when we got married, and he got worse,” she said.
Since the Divorce Act in South Africa did not go into effect until July 1, 1979, Maye “couldn’t do anything because the law wouldn’t allow me to get divorced.”
Initially, Maye was forced to hide the fact that her husband, an engineer, was beating her up. “When my husband was actually going to beat me up at a social event, my friends took me to my mom’s home, and she didn’t know that I was getting beaten up,” she said. “I didn’t share it with her. I didn’t share it with my friends until they saw it publicly, and after that, he wasn’t allowed to beat me.”
The groundbreaking moment came when Maye divorced Errol 40 years ago. But even then, she now wishes she had the courage to walk away from her marriage sooner and inspire women in similar situations to “go to your family and friends.”
“When you make a big change, it will be scary, but you can’t just stay in a bad situation,” she said. “You will be financially strapped, usually, and you know, you can live on peanut butter sandwiches, so you just get away and try to find happiness.”
Despite gaining supermodel status at age 68, Covergirl’s oldest spokesmodel's love life remains a failure. Maye has “pretty much given up on the dating game.”
“You hate to say you’re a failure, but I was pretty much a failure,” she said. “I would stay dating a guy who was treating me badly, and I was very hurt and sad, and then eventually I would have to break up, but I would still be very sad about it.”
However, she said she was “having the best time ever" in her singlehood. “I’m traveling the world,” she said. “I think if anyone wanted to date me, he would barely see me, and he would have to be really more fun than my dog and also happier to see me than my dog because my dog is really happy to see me when I go home.”
Maye also maintains a conscious distance from commenting on the people her kids date. “I don’t criticize because they say I actually have a poor record myself, so I’m not really an expert on dating," she said.