Just realized I never actually knew Musk's ethnicity until he cleared it up himself. Apparently there's been this whole misconception that he's Afrikaner, but he's actually British/English background. Interesting bit - he compared himself to J.R.R. Tolkien, who was also born in South Africa but with English parents. Both ended up leaving and becoming pretty influential figures in completely different fields.

It's kind of wild how much people speculate about his heritage and upbringing. Like, the whole Afrikaner vs English settler thing is actually a pretty big cultural distinction in South African history, but most people outside the country probably don't know the difference. Tolkien spent his early years there before moving to England young, similar path to Musk in a way. And yeah, Musk's apparently a huge Tolkien fan - cites his work all the time on social media.

Musk's been pretty open about his childhood being rough though. Moved to Pretoria as a kid, went through some intense survival camp stuff he described as basically 'Lord of the Flies.' There's also been all these rumors about his dad and an emerald mine that he keeps shutting down. But anyway, the ethnicity thing - just one of those details about him that gets misunderstood a lot.