>His lucrative engineering business took on "large projects such as office buildings, retail complexes, residential subdivisions, and an air force base." He also owned an auto parts store, at least half a share in an emerald mine, and even "one of the biggest houses in Pretoria."[12] His ex-wife Maye's book recalls that at the time of their divorce in 1979, he owned two homes, a yacht, a plane, five luxury cars, and a truck.[13]
Elon was 8 in 1979.
> As a result of this, the teenage Elon Musk once walked the streets of New York with emeralds in his pocket. His father said: “We were very wealthy. We had so much money at times we couldn’t even close our safe,” adding that one person would have to hold the money in place with another closing the door. “And then there’d still be all these notes sticking out and we’d sort of pull them out and put them in our pockets.” [1]
[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/space/elon-musk-made-money-ric...
(And why not use a fraction of the money to buy a second safe, if you really have to keep it in a safe at home.)
I'm old enough that grandparents lived through the great depression. I know they kept wealth in a safe. A lot of their kids did as well. The grandparents had their gold money taken away, or their cash disappeared in banks. A lot of their kids followed along.
Being gen X, Elon has parents/grandparents that lived through the great depression and world war. That along with any other local factors makes keeping wealth in a safe not that unusual.
Was it during the apartheid boycotts?
> Elon, by his father’s recollection then probably 16 years old, and his brother Kimbal, decided to sell emeralds to Tiffany & Co. on Fifth Avenue in New York – one of the world's most famous jewelers – as his father lay sleeping. "They just walked into Tiffany’s and said, ‘Do you want to buy some emeralds?’" Errol recalled in an interview with Business Insider South Africa. "And they sold two emeralds, one was for $800 and I think the other one was for $1,200."
> A few days later the family returned to the store to find that Tiffany was selling the $800 emerald, now set in a ring, for $24,000 -- a markup of 30 times the price Elon had received for the gem.
> Errol has used the story as on object lesson in how retail works ever since. He was surprised but not concerned by the incident, Errol says, because money was plentiful.
> “We were very wealthy,” says Errol. “We had so much money at times we couldn't even close our safe.”
So, selling-emeralds-to-Tiffany-at-16 rich.
You can fit maybe 2 million in a safe. Maybe less if it's poorly packed, small denominations, other items in storage (id, etc). A safe full of money is like having an investment property, it's not really a sign of unreal wealth.
It's like some 20 year old on TikTok flexing a Rolex with aftermarket "diamonds" - it isn't dirt poor but it's not what you'd exactly call generational wealth. You don't even hear Trump bragging about having a ton of cash - even the crassest most trashy rich person wouldn't brag about a safe full of cash.
Half the posters here probably have parents with more assets.
Just look at how insanely biased people are here. Elon once allegedly stole $2k worth of emeralds from his dad, and they're gushing over what fabulous wealth that is.
$2k is a phone or a laptop. Elon was so madly rich he stole something as valuable as a laptop from his dad, and this is somehow evidence that he's basically a de Beers?
1. A safe would hold less than $2M.
2. Someone bragging about less than $2 million in assets is not unbelievably rich.
3. People talk about Musk in a way that suggests his parents were extremely rich.
His parents are telling you they were very wealthy and you somehow managed to come to the conclusion that Elon grew up poor.
I guarantee you the median American isn't so wealthy their safes are overflowing with cash.
I hear this conspiracy theory that he's was super rich. But owning a mine could mean anything from a basically bankrupt speculator to the De Beers. There's claims he gave Musk $28k ... that's not evena decent college fund.