People seem to imagine that Errol Musk is dead and Elon got a big inheritance from his daddy's estate. In fact Errol is still very much alive, became bankrupt sometime in the 1990s, and is now a deadbeat living off financial support from his sons.
Was there ever an emerald mine? Maybe. Though nobody has been able to find a scrap of evidence for it. Literally the only "evidence" is Errol's own boasts, which is that he bought a half-share of a Zambian mine for 100k ZAR ($50k USD). Hardly the stuff generational empires are made of.
The Zambian mine is the emerald mine everyone is talking about. From Walter Isaacson's biography:
> [Errol and a Zambian busienessman] agreed on a price [for Errol's plane], and instead of taking a payment in cash, Errol was given a portion of the emeralds produced at three small mines that the entrepreneur owned in Zambia. [...]
> Errol, who never had an ownership stake in the mine, expanded his trade by importing raw emeralds and having them cut in Johannesburg. "Many people came to me with stolen parcels," he says. "On trips overseas I would sell emeralds to jewelers. It was a cloak-and-dagger thing, because none of it was legal." After producing profits of roughly $210,000, his emerald business collapsed in the 1980s when the Russians created an artificial emerald in the lab. He lost all of his emerald earnings.
Yes, all entirely consistent with what I said. Errol has told this story many times, including to Walter. But that’s all there is — a story. Is it true? Doesn’t seem particularly consequential even if true. $600k is a lot of money, but it’s hardly unimaginable wealth.
Wonder if it would be possible to somehow trace the origin of that emerald to where it came from. Anyway its probably the Musk Family office that was the winning bidder so we may never find out now.
I don't know why this guy keeps having emeralds come up in his life. This auction is hilarious given that he repeatedly denies having anything to do with Emeralds. In fact the origin of the Emerald story is Elon himself, in a Forbes article that has since been scrubbed from the internet.
EM: Company death – not succeeding with the company – causes me a lot more stress than physical danger. But I've been in physical danger before. The funny thing is I've not actually been that nervous. In South Africa, my father had a private plane we'd fly in incredibly dangerous weather and barely make it back. This is going to sound slightly crazy, but my father also had a share in an Emerald mine in Zambia. I was 15 and really wanted to go with him but didn't realize how dangerous it was. I couldn't find my passport so I ended up grabbing my brother's – which turned out to be six months overdue! So we had this planeload of contraband and an overdue passport from another person. There were AK-47s all over the place and I'm thinking, "Man, this could really go bad."
I've no doubt Errol told Elon that the mine existed. I've no doubt that Elon believed it when he was 15 years old, and believed it as recently as 2014. And maybe it did exist, or maybe it was a Nigerian Prince scam and Errol, embarrassed to admit he was duped, never recanted that claim. Who knows.
Meanwhile, there's still no trace of this supposed mine. You'd think with all of the obsession people have with this mythical origin story, someone would have found it by now.
if you bought 50k USD worth of $AAPL in 1990, by conservative estimates they will be worth 560 million USD worth today.
I'd argue, that's generational stuff right there.
Was there ever an emerald mine? Maybe. Though nobody has been able to find a scrap of evidence for it. Literally the only "evidence" is Errol's own boasts, which is that he bought a half-share of a Zambian mine for 100k ZAR ($50k USD). Hardly the stuff generational empires are made of.