Maye Musk might have captured the spotlight on May 2 when she attended this year’s Met Gala with son Elon Musk in New York, but the 74-year-old supermodel has been a celebrity in her own right for decades. Long before her son became the richest man in the world, Musk had already developed a prolific modelling career. She has appeared on the covers of multiple high-profile magazines, including Vogue and Time , played a role in a Beyoncé music video , and been featured in numerous advertisements for anything from make-up brand Revlon to Special K cereal. “I was famous until Elon became famous,” Musk told The New York Times in 2016. Success seems to run in the family and Elon Musk – behind PayPal, Tesla and SpaceX – is not the only one to make a mark. Musk’s other son, Kimbal Musk, is the founder of three food companies: The Kitchen Restaurant Group, a non-profit called Big Green and urban-farming company Square Roots. Her daughter, Tosca Musk, runs her own streaming service and is an award-winning producer and director of films and television shows. “They followed their passions, and they all went in different directions,” Musk said in a 2020 interview. But that success didn’t come easily for Musk or her children. Elon Musk’s model mother on raising kids, CoverGirl contract Early life Musk has been modelling since she was 15 and was a finalist in the 1969 Miss South Africa beauty competition, but it wasn’t until recent years that she could afford to take modelling gigs simply because she wanted to without answering to an agent. That’s because she was hustling to raise three children as a single mother while earning two master’s degrees and establishing a career as a model, dietitian and nutritionist . Musk married Errol Musk in 1970. The two went to high school together, according to her most recent book, A Woman Makes A Plan . Elon Musk’s father is an engineer from South Africa, per a 2017 Rolling Stone profile. Maye Musk told Harper’s Bazaar in 2019 that their marriage quickly went downhill and described the relationship as abusive . Musk became pregnant with Elon Musk during the couple’s honeymoon, she said in a 2020 interview. Elon Musk is estranged from his father. He told Rolling Stone that his father is “a terrible human being”. The two were married for nearly a decade. They divorced in 1979. Meet Elon Musk’s millionaire brother, Kimbal Five jobs at once In 1989, Maye Musk moved with her family from Johannesburg in South Africa to Toronto in Canada. The model told business news channel CNBC in a 2018 interview that she had to work five jobs to make ends meet. She worked as a research officer for the University of Toronto so that her children could go to school there for free, and taught modelling and nutrition classes two nights a week – all while working on her practice and studying to become a registered dietitian. I never helped my kids. I was working too hard, my kids had to be responsible for themselves Maye Musk The family lived in a small flat in Toronto. It was bare when they initially moved in. “And the first thing we did, after the first salary I got, [was] we got an inexpensive carpet put down because we didn’t have chairs or anything,” she said in 2015. “And the second thing we got was a computer for Elon. And so he would sit on the floor at his computer.” Maye Musk recalls a time when the family couldn’t afford to buy red meat for dinner. In the early 1990s, one of her clients who owned a slaughterhouse would give the family a roast every month, even though he had no idea the family couldn’t afford to buy one themselves. “He gave us this huge roast once a month for the three of [my kids],” she said in 2015. “And I’d cut it in four, freeze three [pieces], and we would have a roast once a week that we could share.” The whole Musk family worked hard to support each other during that time, too. Tosca Musk worked at an upscale grocery store near their flat while she went to school, and Maye Musk helped Elon Musk get a job at Microsoft before he went to college, since the husband of one of her colleagues worked there. Later on, she also helped her sons find jobs at a bank through a friend. ‘I never helped my kids’ Despite her achievements, Musk insists that her influence isn’t responsible for the success of her children. “I never helped my kids,” Musk said in 2015. “I was working too hard, my kids had to be responsible for themselves.” Elon Musk in particular had tried his hardest in school, but only in the subjects he liked, Musk said. “He knew everything, but he was the youngest and the smallest in his class,” she said in 2015. Elon Musk took an interest in books, computer programming and investing early on. While the Tesla CEO most recently announced he has made a US$44 billion decision to buy Twitter , even at 14 years old Musk said he had shown a passion for investing. She recently recalled how she helped her teenage son invest 1,000 South African rand (US$62) into a stock he felt passionate about. Elon Musk’s grandparents were adventuring pilots who spent years looking for a lost city in the desert Her ‘best investment ever’ In 1995, Elon Musk and Kimbal Musk started Zip2, a software company that provided business directories and maps to media companies and e-commerce clients. At the time, Maye Musk was running her dietetics practice in Toronto and was preparing to publish her first book, Feel Fantastic . In addition to the multiple jobs she held at the time, Maye Musk worked tirelessly to help her sons start their first business. She started by encouraging Kimbal Musk to get more involved in the business after he had racked up her phone bill by constantly calling Elon Musk, who had moved to Silicon Valley, an area in California that is home to a number of technology companies. “[Kimbal Musk] would come over to my office at night to discuss business with Elon by phone,” she said. “When my phone account reached US$800 per month, I told Kimbal to stop working and join Elon.” Since Musk still lived in Toronto when Zip2 was getting started, she would fly out to Silicon Valley every six weeks. Musk said she helped her sons with everything from the company’s business plan to supervising interns and taking care of printing and office expenses. She also bought them food, clothes and furniture at the time. Some time around 1996, Musk donated all of her savings, which amounted to US$10,000, to cover the office rental and expenses. She calls it her “best investment ever”. They gave me a little toy house and a little toy car the size of a matchbox and said, ‘One day we’ll buy you the real thing’ Maye Musk She was even up until 2am with Kimbal Musk at Kinko’s helping him print out coloured copies of Zip2’s presentations to investors. “That night we were exhausted and exhilarated,” she said in 2015. “We went to the best restaurant in Palo Alto and I told them this was the last time I would use my credit card for our dinners. And that has been true.” By 1997 and 1998, Zip2 began to really take off, and both Elon Musk and Kimbal Musk became busier with board meetings. So Musk was asked to meet the company every week while running her practice and juggling modelling gigs. “I would rent a car every Friday night, do the Nordstrom fashion shows on Saturday morning at 8.30am in San Francisco, San Jose or Sacramento, and then drive to their office for our weekly business meeting,” she said in 2015. Her children made – and kept – an ambitious promise Musk eventually moved to San Francisco for two-and-a-half years to be closer to her children and the business before moving to New York in 1999. Back when the brothers and Tosca Musk were all working at Zip2, before the company sold, they couldn’t afford to buy a big gift for their mother’s 50th birthday. Instead, they made her a promise. “They gave me a little toy house and a little toy car the size of a matchbox and said, ‘One day we’ll buy you the real thing,’” she said. Elon Musk’s post of ancient Chinese poem spurs confusion on Twitter Zip2 eventually sold to Compaq Computer for around US$300 million, and the Musk children kept their word. Ever since, Musk has been an outspoken supporter of Elon Musk on social media. Most recently, she repeatedly derided the Biden administration for largely ignoring Tesla’s role in the movement toward electric cars. Musk previously said in 2015 that she wishes the world would understand the well-intentioned mind of her son. “Elon’s intention is just to do whatever is possible in physics and engineering to make this planet better,” she said. “People think there’s an ulterior motive, but there isn’t. That’s all he’s striving to do. And that really upsets me, when they think ‘Oh, he’s looking for more money.’ No, he’s never done that.” Now, most of Musk’s days are spent modelling, promoting her latest book, and maintaining her nutrition practice. Musk became CoverGirl’s oldest spokesmodel in 2017. Last year, she was signed by the Creative Artists Agency (CAA). But she and her children still find time to meet regularly. Outside accompanying Elon Musk to the Met Gala, the supermodel also made a cameo appearance in the billionaire’s Saturday Night Live performance in 2021. The supermodel has fully taken on the role of grandmother to Elon Musk’s many children. In 2020, she posted several photos and videos of the billionaire’s seventh child, X Æ A-12. “We do a lot of get-togethers,” she said in 2015. “And I’m really fortunate to have three wonderful kids. We’re in a good position now, that we can actually eat roast beef every day if we wanted to. But we wouldn’t dare!”