The world’s richest man Elon Musk spent his childhood in Merseyside with his scouse grandmother, a far cry from the upper echelons of society he now knows today
Musk had a Scouse nana(Image: Getty Images)
In a small suburb of Liverpool, known as Mosley Hill, far away from the White House and Los Angeles mansions, lived the grandmother of 53-year-old tech billionaire Elon Musk.
Cora Robinson grew up in pre-war Liverpool, living in poverty, before eventually moving to South Africa, where she went on to marry Walter Musk in 1944. The Merseyside mother of Errol Musk, Elon’s father, would take her son to visit her hometown of Liverpool throughout his childhood in the 1950s, before he eventually set up an engineering firm that made him a millionaire.
During an interview with The Mirror, Errol Musk, 79, retold stories of trips they made to Liverpool when the SpaceX CEO was growing up.
The richest man in the world, Elon Musk has ties to Liverpool(Image: Getty Images)
He said: “The first time I took Elon to England was when he was six years old. He loved going to Wimbledon. He also loved going to the fruit fields in the summer and picking strawberries.”
The billionaire’s childhood was quite the contrast to that of his late grandmother, growing up in working-class Liverpool and losing her sister to scarlet fever when she was just six.
Errol recalled a story of their time spent in Liverpool when he dropped Elon off at a playground in Wirral, and his son disappeared.
He said: “We called the police, and the search for him went on until 10pm. Then the phone rang, and it was Liverpool police saying they’d got him. He was 10 miles from the park and was with this lady. She told the police she was giving him milk and biscuits, and he was watching the television,” he told the Mirror.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, the businessman accused his father of emotional abuse and described him as an ‘evil’ and ‘terrible human being’. This was after the breakdown of Elon’s relationship with his father when he moved to the US to study.
Errol Musk, 79, the father of tech billionaire Elon Musk who spent his childhood visiting Liverpool(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Despite this, Errol denies the claims and says that he and his son communicate regularly.
It appears that this family has had quite the rags-to-riches story, and yet, relatives of the world’s richest man, after discovering they are second cousins, have been allegedly snubbed by Musk.
Marshall Robinson, 86, told The Metro: “I have never been in touch, but one of the family did send him a social media message, and he just said, ‘What do you want?’ That was it.”
He told the Daily Mail that he’d never met Elon but that he did meet his father, Errol, in South Africa when he was a merchant in the navy. He went on to say that he thinks the billionaire is “stupid” due to the “the things he comes out with”.
Robinson’s sister Shane, also a relative of Musk’s, who is living in a fishing port in Lancashire, added: “He hasn’t shown any interest in us from what I know.”
Mossley Hill, where Elon Musk’s grandmother grew up in Liverpool(Image: Getty Images)
The richest man in the world appears to have very little interest in meeting his Scouse family, in spite of his many public mentions of his “sensible and fair English Nana” as written in a social media post of his.
Elon Musk owns numerous companies including Tesla, SpaceX, and the social media platform X/formerly known as Twitter, but he may be making a new investment that links back to his Merseyside roots.
During an interview on Times Radio, the billionaire’s father was asked if his son has expressed a desire to buy Liverpool Football Club. In response, Errol said: “Oh yes, oh yes—but that doesn’t mean he’s buying it, you know. He would like to, yes. Obviously. Anyone would want to. So would I.”
Elon Musk has expressed desires to buy Liverpool Football Club, according to his father(Image: Getty Images)
It seems, as Elon continues to rub shoulders with the elite, his family is no stranger to a star, or four, as his father revealed that he “knew quite a few of The Beatles” as they grew up with his family back in Liverpool, he told Times Radio.