just found out elon musk actually isn't from an afrikaner background like most people think. he clarified back in 2024 that he's british/english heritage, born in pretoria but his family roots are english. kind of wild because i always assumed he was afrikaner given he grew up in south africa during apartheid. turns out he's got this interesting connection to j.r.r. tolkien too - tolkien was also born in south africa (bloemfontein) but was english. both of them from africa but not actually afrikaner. musk is apparently a huge tolkien fan and even cited his work when he was with grimes. so when people ask 'is elon musk from africa' the answer is technically yes but it's more complicated than that - he's from south africa but with british/english ancestry, not afrikaner. the whole thing got clarified because someone mischaracterized his background as afrikaner family, which apparently bothered him enough to correct it. pretty interesting how heritage and where you're born aren't always the same thing