Just found out Elon Musk actually had to correct people about his ethnic background on Twitter back in 2024. Apparently everyone thought he was Afrikaner, but he's actually from a British/English background. The interesting part? He compared himself to J.R.R. Tolkien, who was also born in South Africa but had English parents. Both born there, both English heritage—kind of a cool parallel.

Musk was born in Pretoria in 1971, and Tolkien in Bloemfontein back in 1892. The article mentions Musk's pretty obsessed with Tolkien's works anyway, so maybe that's why the connection stood out to him. Apparently Tolkien's stuff even played a role when Musk was dating Grimes, which is kind of random but also very on-brand for him.

The whole thing started because someone's blog post described Musk's upbringing as 'Afrikaner family in apartheid South Africa,' and he just wanted to set the record straight. Makes sense—cultural identity matters, and Afrikaner vs English South African are pretty different things historically. Guess even billionaires care about getting their own story right.