Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, appointed by incoming U.S. President Donald Trump to lead his administration's cost-cutting program, found himself at the center of controversies linking him and his family to Nazism in January 2025. On Jan. 20, for example, during a speech at Trump's inauguration celebration, Musk made a gesture that some interpreted as a Nazi salute.
Following this event, a rumor spread on social media that Musk's grandparents actually belonged to the Nazi Party. "Errol Musk talks about Elon's maternal grandparents, who were members of the Nazi party in Canada and later moved to South Africa because they supported the Apartheid regime," one X post (archived) read, reaching over 3.7 million views.
The rumor wildly spread on social media platforms including Reddit, Facebook, X, and Instagram.
In short, while it's well-documented that Joshua Haldeman, Elon's maternal grandfather, was involved in controversial movements and political parties, there is no direct evidence that Haldeman or his wife were members of the Nazi party or associated with the Nazi movement in Canada. There's also no conclusive evidence to corroborate the related claim that the reason Musk's grandparents moved to South Africa was "because they supported apartheid," the racial segregation policies embraced by that country's white minority government.
As of this writing, neither Elon Musk nor his mother, Maye Musk, had commented on these allegations. Snopes reached out to their representatives for a comment, and this article will be updated if a response is provided.
Source of the Claim: Errol Musk's YouTube Interview
The claim in question stems from an interview conducted by YouTuber and podcast host Macgyver Mukwevho with Errol Musk. This interview premiered in November 2024 under the title: "EPISODE 613 | ERROL MUSK On Growing Up in SA, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Dating Step Daughter, Ex Wife's."
The discussion about Musk's maternal grandparents begins around the 52:46 mark:
Below is a transcription of Errol's remarks regarding Maye Musk's parents:
Her [Maye Musk's] parents by the way were very fanatical in favor of apartheid. This is quite interesting. Her parents came to South Africa from Canada because they sympathized with the Afrikaner government.
They used to support Hitler and all that sort of stuff. But they didn't know, obviously, I don't think they knew what the Germans, the Nazis were actually doing. In Canada, they were part of the Nazi, the German party in Canada, and they sympathized with the Germans.
Errol Musk elaborated further, saying: "when the Afrikaner's government came into power here in 1948, then Maye's father [...] said he wanted to be with the Afrikaners because he agrees with apartheid."
We have reached out to Errol Musk for a clarification on his comments.
No Direct Evidence Elon's Grandparents Belonged to Nazi Party
There is no direct evidence to support the claim that Elon Musk's maternal grandparents, Joshua N. Haldeman and Winnifred "Wyn" Josephine (Fletcher) Haldeman, were "Nazi party members in Canada," nor that they moved to South Africa "because they supported apartheid."
In a memoir titled "A Woman Makes A Plan: Advice for a Lifetime of Adventure, Beauty, and Success," Maye Musk explained that her parents moved away from Canada in 1950 because, "They met missionaries who had been to South Africa, who had told them how beautiful it was."
On the other hand, in a biography of Elon Musk, Walter Isaacson wrote that Haldeman immigrated to South Africa because he was disillusioned with the Canadian government's growing control over individual freedoms: "With his quirky conservative populist views, Haldeman came to believe that the Canadian government was usurping too much control over the lives of individuals and that the country had gone soft. So in 1950, he decided to move to South Africa, which was still ruled by a white apartheid regime."
Scott Haldeman, Elon Musk's uncle, in an article titled, "Joshua N Haldeman, DC: the Canadian Years, 1926-1950" published in the Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association, said, "Joshua gave a number of reasons why he decided to leave Canada," concluding that "the primary reason for the relocation to South Africa may have been his adventurous spirit and the desire for a more pleasant climate in which to raise his family."
In a New Yorker article, titled, "The World According to Elon Musk's Grandfather," professor of history and law at Harvard and journalist Jill Lepore wrote that "Haldeman was a pro-apartheid, antisemitic conspiracy theorist who blamed much of what bothered him about the world on Jewish financiers."
Similarly, in an article for the Atlantic, titled, "Elon Musk's Anti-Semitic, Apartheid-Loving Grandfather," Joshua Benton, journalist and founder of Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University, described Haldeman as a radical conspiracy theorist with racist, antisemitic, and antidemocratic views.
Benton also uncovered excerpts from Haldeman's self-published 1960 book, where he wrote about his belief that South Africa could become the "leader of White Christian Civilization," portraying the country as a bulwark against "anti-Christian, anti-White forces."
We have contacted both Isaacson and Benton for additional comments and will update this report with any responses we receive.