you never know with these Mega billionaires and how they measure their money and what's private and what's public but Elon Musk is believed to be perhaps the world's richest man his net worth now is estimated at above $400 billion after co-founding and then selling PayPal he set his sights to the Stars by founding the space rocket company SpaceX he has Ambitions to get to Mars all right now SpaceX accounts for 90% of all rockets that bill he builds and launches reusable Rockets now and of course we know about his work at Tesla just changed the
car market right then he purchased Twitter then he teamed up with Trump uh and Republicans and to help them win the 2024 election and he absolutely had a big impact okay so now he's a big player and he is also a constant Hub of controversy but what criticism is actually deserved now most recently you know what's being said about him that he made a Gest uh when he was up on stage that people are saying was a Nazi salute now I didn't see it that way because he explained it as I send my heart out
to you that has not been satisfying to people who want to believe something else who would know the answer I get criticized that I don't know what's in his head and his heart okay I bet his father does the man who made him Errol musk joins us now Errol thank you for taking the opportunity that was a pleasure and I know it's in the uh I know it's in the very early morning for you in South Africa so thank you thank you for making the accommodation um what do you make sir of the suggestion that
your son was making a Nazi salute up on stage it's absolute nonsense absolute rubish rubish a universal uh salute or as he said you know throwing his heart out I suppose yes it's a universal thing for thousands of years so that's rubbish that's a rubbish what do you want PE what do you want to explain to people about how your son thinks in terms of helping them understand how to judge a behavior like that well you know I mean uh what Behavior the behavior was fine I can't see anything wrong with that behavior I've seen
since then a number of photographs of Obama and uh OAC AOC and so on using the same gesture nobody's worried about it when they make that that sort of suggest in fact quite differently in fact so you know again it's just rubbish I don't think it's a talking point it's nonsense you know it's just utter nonsense good then let's move on I saw you talking about the maternal side of the family and concerns that you had uh and affiliations that they had uh what do you want people to know but specifically do you ascribe any
of the lineage on the maternal side to your son that he's like his maternal grandfather or anybody on that side of the family no not at all um the maternal grandfather passed away when Elon was one year old so that you know that's crazy um the uh other thing is that um you know my sons grew up with me and I was twice a candidate for parliament in South Africa for the party that was wanted to abolish her parted so rather focus on their father who they spent grew up with and spent their life with
not with their mother they grew up with me after we were divorced you know and with me they helped me at elections uh you know uh as helpers uh for a party that was opposed to a party and I was a candidate for it for which I was spat on screamed on threatened with death and so forth you know so Elon saw all that too um you know I saw an interview with him where he showed a dog tag and he said this was given to me by uh some of the parents of the hostages
taken stolen from Israel that are still in Gaza and I said I'd wear it until they're all home to me that was the end of the discussion about whether or not he had any anti-semitic uh sympathies he's wearing a dog tag to commemorate the hostages did you know that no I didn't know that but um you know my mother's my own Mother's grandfather was Jewish so from our point of view we're sort of a little bit connected to the Jewish community and um no no no we we view the Jewish people as as very capable
people you know and uh no no that's just nonsense you know just nonsense I mean he's doing the nice thing there I think there's twoo two sides to the story in in in in Israel I mean the Palestinians or the Arab Palestinians needed their case to be looked at as well so it's not just about supporting the one side or the other you know absolutely there are no winners in the situation right now to be sure uh speaking of winners how does it affect you as a father to see the image that I have up
on the screen right now of your son standing behind the presidential seal of the United States and having been so of fundamental importance uh to now president Trump in the campaign and arguably the most powerful private citizen in America well yes you know it's very very good I mean it's not new for us you know in my country in my way I mean I was similar in a way as a young boy and um you know I was heavily into everything at an early stage much like him of course at a much smaller stage but
it's part of the the life that we as a family have experienced you know all my children have done well in their fields Elon has to a certain extent broken the mold but um we're not sort of uh you know sitting back we we would like to see more you know why not I mean um very happy with him very very happy and of course he's new to politics you know it was only about four years ago that he was a flaming Democrat you know and quite uh opposed to Donald Trump in fact it was
it took Biden and his gang to uh teach Elon a lesson and make him see the other side of the story you know so let's uh tell tell us about that a little bit because people don't know this that I you know family's complicated you had periods of estrangement with your son but you're saying that politics was part of it and that Trump was part of it yes you know I you know there's a party held for me when I was 70 in Kon and and Elon brought about 50 people from America and private jets
they held this big party for me and during at the end of the party John favro one of the actors there a lot of actors in the thing said to me we believe you this was in 2016 you support Trump and I said well yes I do and that the whole place you know broke up into Cy of laughter and uh you know it was quite embarrassing for me and my two boys and then they said to me well why you know I said well he's just like us which brought on more laughter and so
um after that I was left alone in that restaurant and my sons came to me and said you know couldn't you have just said something else like I don't know you know I'm not sure and you know and they gave me a big dressing down and and you know very angry I've never seen mine youngest own so angry in fact and uh we never spoke about it after that for a long time even though I made my trips there we just didn't talk about things like that and um and so uh yeah you know and
so I was quite without we've never even discussed it since he's changed we because as a father I don't have anything to I'm not sort of wanting to say to him I told you so or anything like that but he he started changing when Biden invited all the electric car manufacturers to the White House in 2021 uh but didn't invite Tesla Tesla had built a million cars and the other five manufacturers had built 26 and hadn't even sold one and Elon had sold all his so Elon couldn't understand that he started calling Biden a lunatic
and uh and the government Looney and um the result was that I said to him you know you're making political statements these people aren't going to find this funny you know they'll kill you if you got good bodyguards and then after that he saw the you know an absolute delus of statements on Twitter telling him he's a piece of this and a piece of that and he must be deported and he couldn't understand it because he'd always thought he's he was doing a good things he was doing good things and um and and and then
they told him that TR is actually an arm of the democratic government it's not really it's being run by the FBI for the Democrats and he said in that case he's going to buy it and at that time we thought T switter was worth $7 billion for its database and on but in fact they forced him to pay $ 4 billion but he did it anyway and put an to that and then of course this rest the story you know he then joined with Trump and he's now fully with Trump and as he said at
the election civilization has been saved I'm inclined to agree with him on that you know I live in a country where we've had Dei for 30 years and this was a a very very highly functioning country the our currency was with the second most valuable currency in the world uh since we've had Dei the country has completely collapsed we don't have any functioning departments anymore uh all our government departments sort of half run if they run so we don't have a functioning Airline anymore we don't have a functioning Railway system we don't have a functioning
post office we don't have a functioning anything uh anymore I get so uh that's South Africa from Dei I get it and it's an important context to help understand where elon's coming from in terms of what's shaping his decisions and what's changed his point of view so Errol I appreciate you giving us this perspective uh when we see what he does next with Doge or whatever it is and if we're scratching our heads about why I'm coming right back to you so you can help me understand where your son's coming from thank you very much
for doing it can I just say something yes can I say something I love your show what a great show thank you thank you Erol I appreciate CN you'll be back much better than CNN I heard you have a good night Errol thank you very much okay say hello to your son take care hey thanks for watching go to join nn.com to find newsnation on your screen and don't forget click the red subscribe button below to get more of news nation's fact driven unbiased coverage
