Elon Musk’s dad Errol says he can ‘prove’ existence of emerald mine

Elon Musk put a million dogecoin bounty down for anyone who can prove the existence of an emerald mine. His father says he can.

Last week, the tech billionaire offered a million Dogecoin to anyone who could prove the existence of the mine. Picture: Supplied

Elon Musk’s dad Errol claims he bankrolled his billionaire son’s escape from South Africa to America with emeralds from an “under the table” mine in Zambia.

The Tesla CEO, 51, last week offered a million Dogecoin (about AU$124,000) to anyone who can prove the existence of the mine his dad supposedly owned.

He has previously slammed the claim, saying: “The fake emerald mine thing is so annoying. Like where exactly is this thing anyway!?”

Errol Musk, the father of tech billionaire Elon Musk who spent his early life in apartheid-era South Africa, poses for a portrait at his house Langebaan, South Africa. Picture: AFP

But in an exclusive interview with the US Sun, Errol claimed it was his emerald venture which helped pave the way for Elon to become a wildly successful captain of industry in the US.

Describing the moment he heard of the dogecoin cryptocurrency reward, Errol joked: “When I read that, I wondered, ‘Can I enter, because I can prove it existed.’

“Elon knows it’s true. All the kids know about it. My daughter has three or four emerald pendants.

“Elon saw them (the emeralds) at our house. He knew I was selling them.”

To prove his point, Errol provided pics of some of the bright green precious gemstones, which he says came from the mine.

He explained that it is in the Lake Tanganyika region of Zambia, the second biggest emerald-producing country in the world after Colombia.

Twitter CEO Elon Musk holding one of his children. Picture: AFP

But Errol admits it was far from being a conventional mining set up - and that might explain why Elon is so sure no one can prove its existence.

Errol says he first stumbled into the emerald business while flying from South Africa en route to the UK to sell a Cessna Golden Eagle plane.

Landing at an airstrip near Zambia’s northern borders with Tanzania and what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, he met and befriended the Italian owner of the airstrip.

It turned out the Italian-employed locals dig out emeralds deep in the Zambian bush and Errol decided to go into business with him.

The workers would bring them in for shipment to Errol in what the retired electromechanical engineer described as an “under the table” operation.

A digitally-altered image of Elon Musk. Picture: Twitter

The Italian business partner would then pay the locals around $2 a load, enough to feed an entire family for a month, Errol says.

He explained: “What Elon is saying is that there was no formal mine.

“It was a rock formation protruding from the ground in the middle of nowhere.

“There was no mining company. There are no signed agreements or financial statements.

“No one owned anything. The deal was done on a handshake with the Italian man at a time when Zambia was a free for all.

“Not even he knew exactly where the border was. At that time, it was like the Wild West.”

Errol can only say for sure that the deposit was about 40 miles from where he had landed his Cessna in Kasaba Bay, which is now a tourist hub.

Errol Musk claims it was his emerald venture which helped pave the way for Elon to become a wildly successful captain of industry in the US. Picture: AFP

Explaining why he thinks that Elon has pushed back on the emerald mine story, Errol said: “Elon’s main concern is not to appear to be a ‘trust fund kid’ who got everything given to him on a plate.

“That’s what his nay-sayers are pushing. It’s not true. Elon took risks and worked like blazes to be where he is today.

“The emeralds helped us through a very trying time in South Africa, when people were fleeing the country in droves, including his mother’s whole family, and earning opportunities were at an all-time low. That’s all.”

Describing how he used the proceeds from the emeralds to set Elon and his brother Kimbal on a new path, Errol said: “In the late 1980s, Elon was doing a business degree at the University of Pretoria.

“But he was very unhappy there. The last straw for him was when someone stole his expensive bicycle I had bought him.

“One day, I found him in bed looking depressed. It was heartbreaking to see him like that.

“I said to him, ‘You’re not very happy, Elon, are you?’ He said, ‘No.’

“And suddenly, it came to me out of the blue to ask him, ‘Would you like to go and study in the United States?

“He looked up at me, his face beaming and exclaimed, ‘Yes!’

“Ten days later, Elon left South Africa with a return ticket for a year for America with emerald money in his pocket.”

Elon first spent a year working for the Bank of Nova Scotia in Canada between 1989 and 1990.

Then, he enrolled on a scholarship at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School, one of the top business schools in the world.

Errol said: “During that time, I managed to send money I’d made from emerald sales to him and Kimbal for living expenses.”

But when the bottom dropped out of the emerald business due to the emergence of a cheaper lab-made version of the gemstone, Errol had to sell assets to keep cash flowing to his sons.

He unsuccessfully tried to cash in on his share in a game farm, so was forced to his ocean-going yacht for R100,000 (then around AU$43,000), a quarter of its value.

Errol says he then had to send the cash via an Israeli broker because of strict exchange control regulations.

He explained: “I took a hell of a chance because people I knew were sent to jail for doing a similar thing.

“I managed to send them about R400,000 (then around AU$171,000) in total.

“It helped them with rent and food. Kimbal told me that they could never have survived without the money.”

Elon has previously claimed that he arrived in Canada in 1989 with just CA$2,500 (AU$2763) and paid his own way through college, ending with about AU$150,000 in student debt.

But despite repeatedly stating that there is “no evidence” of an emerald mine, he has reportedly admitted that it did exist - and that he visited it.

According to fact-checking website Snopes, Elon said in a since-deleted interview with Forbes in July 2014: “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 realise 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 plane load 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.’”

The US Sun has reached out to Elon Musk for comment.

This story was published in the US Sun and reproduced with permission

Originally published as Elon Musk’s dad Errol says he can ‘prove’ existence of emerald mine