The Musk family is a wealthy family of South African origin that is largely active in the United States and Canada. The Musks are of English, Anglo-Canadian, Pennsylvania Dutch, and Swiss descent. The family is known for its entrepreneurial endeavours.[1][2][3] Elon Musk was formerly the wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$232 billion as of December 2023[update], according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.[4]
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Elon Musk's paternal great-grandmother was a Dutchwoman descended from the Dutch Free Burghers, while one of his maternal great-grandparents came from the Haldimann family in Switzerland.[2][5] His paternal grandmother was English from Liverpool and his paternal grandfather Walter Henry J. Musk was South African.[6][7] Elon Musk's father, Errol Musk,[8] is a South African former electrical and mechanical engineer consultant and property developer,[7] who was involved in the emerald business at some point in the 1980s,[9][10] and was a member of the South African Progressive Federal Party.[11]: 225, fn 119
His maternal grandparents Winnifred Josephine "Wyn" (Fletcher) and Joshua Norman Haldeman were explorers who lived in South Africa and Canada and searched for the Lost City of the Kalahari.[12] Joshua Haldeman was a former director of Technocracy Incorporated and a political activist who ran for the Canadian Parliament on the Social Credit Party ticket, and headed the Canadian branch of the Technocracy movement.[13][14]