The father of the world's richest man has opened up in a rare interview, speaking about Elon Musk's childhood, allegations of sexual abuse and fathering two children with his former stepdaughter.
7NEWS Spotlight's Liam Bartlett travelled to South Africa to speak with 79-year-old Errol Musk, who also touched on an incident when he shot dead three black intruders at his then-home in northern Johannesburg.
"Of course I didn't want that to happen," Musk snr told Spotlight of the 1998 shooting. "They attacked us: we were in the home, in a house I was renting out on a farm. They came in, about seven or eight of them, they just started shooting at us. Just opened up on us."
"The police picked up 52 shells. The house was a mess. I only fired two shots; one shot killed two people and the second shot killed another."
Musk snr also told Bartlett that Langebaan — where he now lives, about 120km north of Cape Town — doesn't "have crime because most of the people who've moved here; it's very much a more European, white community."
Errol Musk, 79, is as well known for his controversial opinions as his bizarre family life.
"I think I did my part," he said. "It would be illogical not to [say that]. As a young boy, I was top of the class."
And Elon? "No [he wasn't], oddly enough," Musk said. "Not at school."
"I'll definitely say that Elon is genius level, no question about that. He has an inner way of thinking."
Musk snr defended his parenting style, one which later saw Elon describe him as "evil" and a "terrible human being".
"I don't know what he's talking about," he said. "I don't know what to say. It's not true."
"They want to hurt me, I guess," Musk snr countered. "They think I'm very lucky - I think they think I'm too lucky."
"I had to raise men, not sissies. I was able to send Elon to America when he was two weeks short of 18 all on his own. I knew that he would be all right."
His first wife and Elon's mother, Maye, has also accused Musk snr of domestic abuse, another claim he denies.
"Never, not even once," he told Spotlight. "I don't know how to answer such a question."
Musk snr was similarly defiant about his two youngest children, whose mother is Jana Bezuidenhout, the daughter of his second wife Heide, and allegations he sexually abused five of his children or stepchildren, including Jana.
"I didn't get her pregnant," Musk said. "She got herself pregnant. We had a relationship."
"She was my stepdaughter, 1992 to 1994. She came to see me years later when she was 30 years old — she already had a child — and she told me she was destitute. So I helped her; she was living with a man in a disused shop. I helped her out of that, gave her a vehicle and helped her, and him, for a couple of years until she left him."
Jana Bezuidenhout is now 37 and does not answer questions regarding the allegations except to say she does not live with Errol.
Challenged further on a family situation which could charitably be called bizarre, Musk snr appeared to compare himself to royalty.
"If you look at the antics of the so-called British royal family you'll also be inclined to say 'that's a little bit odd'," he said.
"For ordinary folk, it might be a bit out of the ordinary. As you move in society, up to the so-called royal family, they do weird things."
The New York Times first reported the allegations last year. Among the allegations against him is the claim he abused Jana when she was just four, and that later he sniffed her dirty underwear.
"It's not true," he said. "[They're] trying to get money from Elon. Saying to Elon — 'look at what we have to put up with your father — you have to help us with money'."
Despite it all Musk snr, who said he communicates with Elon via email on a monthly basis, says he wouldn't change a thing.
"I have a clean slate," he said. "I don't have anything that I want to change."
