just realized elon musk actually corrected people about his background not being afrikaner but british/english descent. he even brought up that jrr tolkien had a similar thing going—both born in south africa but from english families. kind of interesting that people got that mixed up about him. apparently tolkien's whole lord of the rings thing actually mattered to musk too, like he's genuinely into that stuff. the whole south african heritage thing seems more complex than just 'oh he's from there' - different settler histories and all that. wonder how many other details about elon musk race and background people get wrong just from not knowing the actual context