No, this image doesn't show young Elon Musk with his mother

By: Chandan Borgohain
August 11 2023

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What's the claim?

A photo of a white woman sitting with a young child on her lap while a Black woman kneels beside them is widely circulating on social media. Users sharing the photo claim that it shows a young Elon Musk with his mother and that the photograph reflects a racist side of Musk and his parents. One post on the platform X (formerly Twitter) is captioned, "This is Elon musk and his parent. They had a black women helper. Who was not allowed to seat on their sofas. Who was not allowed to ask any questions. Elon musk is a racist white man like his parents," and has over 21,000 views and 125 reposts. You can read the archived version here.

The image has been widely shared on X. (Source: X/@DannyMalesela1/Altered by Logically Facts)

What's the context?

The claim surfaced after Musk criticized South African political leader Julius Malema for chanting an "apartheid-era" song called "Kill the Boer" at a political rally in Johannesburg on July 29, 2023. According to an article published by AFP, Musk, in a post, accused Malema of promoting the "genocide of white people in South Africa" through the song. Malema defended the song and said that Musk "looks like an illiterate." "The only thing that protects him is his white skin," Malema reportedly added.

What's the truth?

We found a black-and-white version of the photo on the Harvard Art Museum's website. According to the website, the photograph entitled "Mother, Daughter, Maid (Johannesburg, South Africa)" was taken by the American photographer Rosalind Fox Solomon. 

A monochrome version of the image available on Harvard Art Museum's website. (Source: harvardartmuseums.org/Altered by Logically Facts)

A copy of the photo is also available on the website of the National Gallery of Art and was titled "Mother, Daughter and Maid, Johannesburg, South Africa, 1988, printed 1993". This indicated that the photo was taken in 1988. An article on Solomon's photographic work by New York Magazine's city editor Christopher Bonanos published in Vulture features the photograph. The caption, "Johannesburg, South Africa, 1988", corroborates that the photo was taken in 1988. One can see the photograph in Rosalind Fox Solomon's photobook "The Forgotten," published by MACK.

Monochrome versions of the photo. (Source: vulture.com/mackbooks.co.uk/Altered by Logically Facts)

In an interview with Linda Yablonsky for the Archives of American Art, Solomon described how she made the photograph. "... I went to take a picture of the mother and daughter, and she said, "Oh, just a minute, do you mind, I want to call"—whoever the maid was—"my maid. I want her to be in the picture. Is that okay?" And I said, sure. She called her in and she said, "Now get down on the floor." She had her kneel on her—and that's the picture that I got." she told.

Elon Musk was born in June 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa. Musk would have been in his teens when the photo in question was taken in 1988, whereas the viral photo shows a much younger girl. An online search for Musk's teenage photo led us to a photo of him tweeted by his mother, Maye Musk, on June 11, 2020. The photograph was taken in January 1989, and it shows Elon with his siblings.

(Source: X/@DannyMalesela1/@mayemusk/Altered by Logically Facts)

Full Fact has also debunked this claim.

The verdict

The viral photo doesn't show a young Elon Musk with his mother. It shows a woman with her daughter and their maid in the late eighties in South Africa. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.