Musk’s father claims to have set up his son’s phone conversation with the South African leader

The president of South Africa had to give Elon Musk a call on Monday night.

Following Musk’s public accusations of anti-white bigotry against his post-apartheid administration, U.S. President Donald Trump, who is Musk’s supporter, announced that he will stop providing the nation with more than $400 million in financing.

According to Musk senior, Bejani Chauke, an advisor to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, phoned Musk’s father, Errol, a 78-year-old engineer who resides in a lavish two-story seaside home two hours’ drive from Cape Town.

“I was asked if I could set up a brief conversation between Ramaphosa and Elon last night… so I did and then they spoke a few minutes later,” Errol Musk told Reuters at his residence in Langebaan, a predominantly white neighborhood overlooking an Atlantic Ocean-fed lagoon where he owns a Rolls-Royce and a Bentley.

In order to support his narrative, he momentarily displayed a WhatsApp conversation between Chauke and himself. When questioned by Reuters over his involvement in reaching out to Musk’s father, Chauke remained silent. Ramaphosa’s office posted on the tycoon’s X social media platform to announce the phone call with South African-born Elon Musk.

Ramaphosa’s spokeswoman, who was contacted by Reuters, said, “Errol Musk is a private citizen, his views are his personal views,” without expanding on the nature of the conversation or how it came about.

Reuters asked Elon Musk for comment several times, but he never responded.

Trump claimed in a post on Sunday that “South Africa is confiscating land” and that “certain classes of people” were being treated “very badly” without providing any supporting proof, which set off the unexpected outburst of backdoor diplomacy.

He also threatened to stop funding the nation in retaliation, which caused equities and government bonds to decline and the South African rand to drop by around 2% in early trade on Monday. Since early August, the price of default insurance for South African debt has increased to its highest level.

Elon Musk and many white farmers have publicly criticized a measure that Ramaphosa signed into law last month that aims to redress racial imbalances in land ownership that have remained in South Africa since apartheid ended 30 years ago. Trump was alluding to this bill.

In some situations, the law permits the state to take land “in the public interest” without paying the owner compensation. The government’s goal to give 30% of farmland to Black people was originally set by South Africa, but it has been continually pushed back. In 2018, the government surveyed title deeds and found that just 8 percent had been transferred.

As to the latest official audit, three-quarters of South Africa’s freehold farmland is owned by White landowners, while Black landowners control just 4%. In South Africa, over 80% of the population is Black, with only 8% being white.

In his Monday response to Trump’s remarks, Ramaphosa stated that no property had been seized by the government and that he was eager to speak with Trump in order to further his comprehension of a policy intended to guarantee fair public access to land.

In response to Ramaphosa, Trump supporter Elon Musk posted on X on Monday, criticizing South Africa of having “openly racist ownership laws.”

According to engineer Errol Musk, who claims to work in real estate development and for his son’s American satellite company Starlink, Trump would be correct to stop supporting South Africa.

He claimed he was unsure if his son had influenced Trump on the matter, but he did not believe it was essential because Washington was correct to examine the use of U.S. funds overseas.

“Elon would bring up some aspects of South Africa, but Americans are not that dumb… The bottom line is that everyone wants money from them,” he stated.

“Why American taxpayers are required to pay about $500 million year for HIV treatment for South Africans is something I’d want to know. Why?

$315 million of the $440 million Washington pledged to provide to South Africa in 2023 was for HIV/AIDS. 17% of South Africa’s HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment program, which disproportionately impacts Black and impoverished people, was funded by the United States, according to Ramaphosa.

“I can only imagine that Elon would have said (to Ramaphosa) ‘we want to help you, but you have to quit this war on white people in South Africa’,” Musk older added.

“I’d imagine he’d be saying ‘do you want Zimbabwe here?’,” he stated.

During the 2000s, many of white farmers fled Zimbabwe as the late president Robert Mugabe ordered violent confiscations of white-owned properties. A lot of people believed that their departure was disastrous for the nation’s agriculture and economy as a whole. Reuters was unable to confirm whether Elon Musk brought up Zimbabwe in his discussion with Ramaphosa.

Since apartheid ended in 1994, South Africa has never used force to seize land held by white people as part of its land reform initiatives.