Did Elon Musk Really Own An Emerald Mine?

One of the most popular names today is Elon Musk, a ‘self-made’ man, singing praises of whose accomplishments could take a day. I mean, the man has got so much on his list of titles - Founder of SpaceX and The Boring Company, Co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI, CEO of SpaceX, Tesla, and of course, now Twitter, and whatnot. Not to forget the Musk Foundation and his many other endeavors.

Apart from his accomplishments, Musk has been famous for Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency he heavily promotes, his ideologies and vision for the future, and also, for never missing the opportunity of landing in controversies. The latest of the controversies he’s struggling with is related to an emerald mine in Zambia of which his dad is rumored to have purchased some shares back when Musk was a teenager.

The word on the street isn’t a present-day ephemeral affair but a shadow that continues to follow around Musk since at least 2009. The rumor emanated in 2009 when The New Yorker published an article on Musk that focused - for the most part - on his ideas for electric cars but also spread some information on the emerald mine. Talking about Musk when he was eleven, the author claims that Musk had expressed to his mother the desire of moving back to Pretoria to live with his father, who’d later on turn out to have a share in an emerald mine.

Because Musk wasn’t as much of a big public figure back then as he’s now, and given the fact that social media at that time wasn’t as much of a giant influencer as it is now, the article talking about the emerald mine didn’t gain much attention from the general public or media houses. However, since then till now, several claims have been made by renowned newspaper companies and business news websites like The New York Post and Business Insider.

The elephant in the room came to light 4 years after its inception in 2009 when Musk was interviewed by Jim Clash of Forbes in 2014. It’s rumored that it’s the first interview in which Musk talked about his father having a share in an emerald mine in Zambia. While as much as I’d like to satiate your curiosity by showing you the original article of Forbes, it can’t be done. The article in question is unavailable on the Forbes website. However, it’s there on the Internet Archive.

There’s so much more about the purported emerald mine than meets the eye. In an article published in 2020, Ashley Vance of Bloomberg also spread some light on the emerald mine in question. She stated in her article that Errol Musk (father of Elon Musk) ‘owned a small percentage of an emerald mine”. In the present times, the internet is full of these BS claims - that’s what the Twitter CEO feels about the claims - emerging out of nowhere. And because everyone’s on Twitter nowadays, the rumor has become the current hot topic there.

Folks can be too harsh sometimes. Many took to Twitter and bashed Musk by claiming that he has built his empire from the deep pockets of his dad. As I said, folks can be too harsh sometimes. Amid all these allegations and rumors flooding the internet, Musk continues to deny owning any emerald mine. He even responded so many times with utmost confidence to different Twitter handles questioning or taking a dig at his reputation and financial status. The first searchable record of Musk’s tweet related to the emerald mine dates back to December 29, 2019.

In the above tweet, Musk can be seen referring to the emerald mine allegation that it was he who worked his way through college. You can find so many of his tweets in which he denies owning an emerald mine and that there’s no evidence of the mine.

To do away with the rumor, Elon Musk has finally come up with an idea. Musk has set a bounty of a million dogecoin for anyone who has evidence of the existence of the emerald mine at issue. Responding to a tweet by DogeDesigner which states that Musk never owned an emerald mine, Musk tweeted and set a bounty on April 13, 2023. However, till now, no one has come up with the evidence and Musk stands tall with confidence.

Emerald is perhaps one of the few gemstones that have the power to satiate the soul of their wearer. Apart from its lush green color and durability that have gained the gemstone a widespread adulation since ancient times, it’s long been known as Cleopatra’s favorite stone. However, things have changed now, in the sense that this gemstone is now known for its association with the second richest man on Earth right now, Elon Musk.

As regards Musk, we’re not sure if someone would come up with the evidence or not but what we do know for sure is that a man of his stature, intelligence and creativity surely forged his way to fame by working hard, thinking out of the box, and pushing the boundaries.