Elon Musk is a self-entitled child of apartheid South Africa

Musk's father, Errol Musk, had reaped the benefits of South Africa's notorious mining industry, which placed profits far ahead of miners' safety, whether the mines, which employed blacks in the most dangerous jobs, were located in South Africa, Southwest Africa, or Botswana. In the case of Errol, he bought an emerald mine near Lake Tanganyika in Zambia in the 1980s and made a fortune for his family. The Musks, including Elon, lived in Waterkloof, a well-heeled suburb of Pretoria. The Pretoria home was one of several possessed by Errol, who also owned a yacht, thoroughbred horses, and a Cessna airplane.

In the South Africa of Elon Musk's youth, the apartheid government had banned homosexuality, abortion, prostitution, gambling, pornography, sex education, and blacks in the major cities and towns after sunset. Television was not available until 1976, when Elon was 5 years old. The government strictly enforced Sunday "blue laws," especially when it came to the selling of alcohol or movie theaters, which were closed. What was plentiful in Elon's youth were guns and plenty of them. The gun was considered a part of Afrikaaner culture, which saw any others as a threat: blacks and Englishmen to the predatory animals of the Veldt grasslands of the country.

Elon Musk's friendship and partnership with Peter Thiel, the notorious Donald Trump-supporting co-developer along with Musk of PayPal, does not bode well for democracy or racial justice. Thiel, born in Frankfurt, Germany, founded Palantir, one of the most intrusive deep data mining operations in the world today. Thiel, like Musk, is an ardent right-wing libertarian. Thiel is also heavily invested in Facebook. Thiel, who is openly gay, resigned in February from the board of Meta, Facebook's corporate parent, to assist pro-Trump candidates win in 2022 Republican primaries and the November mid-term election. There is a belief among some Wall Street experts a sizable chunk of Musk's $44 billion for Twitter came from Thiel's venture capital network and that Thiel, a former derivatives trader for Credit Suisse will have "silent partner" influence over Twitter after Musk takes it private.