As tech mogul Elon Musk prepares to step into a new political role in the next Trump adminsitration, his dad Errol seemed proud about his son's transition from left-wing to right-wing politics

Speaking to the MailOnline, Errol said he’s proud to watch his son “accepting who he is”. He said: "I think for the first time Elon was accepting who he is. Until recently, he’s been a sort of character on a stage.

“When you come from South Africa, Lefties think you’re a Nazi. To succeed, you need to be accepted by them so my sons, [Elon and younger brother Kimbal, a hugely successful restaurateur], started to become these flaming liberals – turning away from South Africa and their roots, which included me. Finally, Elon was embracing his heritage and his destiny.”

In a separate interview, Errol explained how right-wing poltics were at the core of his family’s history. Elon’s maternal grandparents relocated from Canada to South Africa in the early 1900s as they knew the Afrikaner government was a stronghold of support for Nazism outside of Germany.

"They used to support Hitler and all that sort of stuff. But they didn’t know, I don’t think they knew what the Nazis were doing. But they [the grandparents] were in the German Nazi party but in Canada. And they sympathise with the Germans. "

  • minnow@lemmy.world
    215·
    1 year ago

    Leftists: Elon is a fascist

    Centrists: No he isn’t, it’s not ok for you to say that.

    Elon’s Dad: Elon is finally the Nazi we wanted him to be.

    Centrists: Uh…

  • Th4tGuyII@fedia.io
    46·
    1 year ago

    They had “no idea” what the Nazis were but moved from a country against Nazis to a country with a strong base of Nazi sympathisers…

    I wonder why people might think they were Nazis hmmm.

    Elon was always “embracing” this side of himself, just that before 2016 he had to be more covert about it, as did all the other racist woodlouse that came out of the woodwork

      • floofloof@lemmy.caEnglish
        17·
        1 year ago

        It’s The Mirror reporting on The Daily Mail, so it has been through two rounds of incoherent tabloid garbling. We can’t really know what to make of it unless we can find a better source for Musk’s family history. This particular claim about when and why his grandparents moved to South Africa isn’t in the Mail interview and The Mirror doesn’t name a source for it except “a separate interview.”

        However, we can be fairly certain that Elon and his dad are both nasty pieces of work:

        ‘Elon thinks woke is a joke. He’s said it’s got to end. I forget his exact words, but he’s starting a war on woke. He says woke has taken his oldest son from him.’

        He’s referring to Elon’s trans daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson, who he’s said on ‘X’ has been ‘killed by the woke mind virus’.

        Edit: Turns out Musk’s maternal grandparents moved to South Africa in 1950, not the early 1900s:

        Elon Musk’s Anti-Semitic, Apartheid-Loving Grandfather

        Archive: https://archive.is/x3OYY

    • lengau@midwest.social
      1·
      1 year ago

      The Afrikaners weren’t disenfranchised. The National Party held seats in parliament from shortly after its founding in 1914 and JBM Hertzog was prime minister from 1924-1939. The first prime minister of the Union of South Africa was Louis Botha, who was a Boer veteran.

      The United Party was a centre-right party that was an alliance of Anglophone and Afrikaner whites as well as coloureds (n.b. for Americans: not what you’re likely thinking, so click the link). They lost the 1948 election to the far-right National Party, at which point the government of South Africa became dominated for 40 years by far-right Afrikaner grievance politics.

      The most notable English-speaking member of parliament during apartheid was Helen Suzman.