Maye Musk at 78: From Kalahari Camping to CoverGirl, a Life of Reinvention and Resilience
Elon Musk is famously nomadic, opting for friends’ couches or spartan temporary lodgings over a permanent address. As it turns out, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. His 78-year-old mother, Maye Musk, reveals she shares that same comfort with “roughing it”—a mindset forged during a childhood spent camping in the Kalahari Desert and decades of couch-surfing that lasted until she was 60.
A No-Frills Philosophy Forged in Adversity
“If I have a couch or a mattress on the floor, then I’m good,” Maye told The Post. “Sleeping on the floor — there’s a roof over your head. That’s a luxury.”
This unsentimental, no-frills approach defines the matriarch’s new memoir, Timeless: The Art of Reinvention and Resilience at Any Age (Harper Wave). It is a philosophy born from raising three children as a single mother while building a thriving career in modeling and nutrition. In a culture that often treats victimhood as a virtue, Maye’s grit is a refreshing counter-narrative—especially from a woman who could easily be retired on a superyacht.
“People suffer a lot in this world and they don’t think there’s a way out,” Maye said. “They need to focus… how are you going to get out of this miserable situation?”
It is a question she answered decisively in her 30s. After years married to Errol Musk, whom she describes in her book as physically and emotionally abusive, she left him to support herself, Elon, younger son Kimbal, and daughter Tosca. (Errol denied the abuse claims in a New York Times interview last year.)
As a single mother in South Africa and later Toronto, she juggled roles as a private dietitian, nutrition teacher, and model to keep the family afloat.
“You can do without dinners and you can do without movies or fancy clothes or anything, as long as you don’t have somebody who’s nasty around, shouting at you all the time,” she said.
The “Best Years” Arrive in Her Seventies
At 50, Maye moved to New York City, drawn by the pace: “New Yorkers walk fast, they talk fast, they think fast.” The move prioritized her modeling career, which has since launched into the stratosphere. Now in her late 70s, she has zero interest in slowing down. In 2022, she became the oldest woman to appear in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition and currently serves as a CoverGirl ambassador.
“I would say my seventies have been my best,” Maye said. “My best years, really.”
That success demands discipline. Living in downtown NYC, Maye spends four hours every morning managing her social media profiles and vetting modeling and speaking opportunities—work she insists on doing herself rather than delegating to a team.
A Family Ethos of Relentless Building
That work ethic is clearly inherited. Her children—Elon, filmmaker Tosca, and technologist-turned-chef Kimbal—have all embraced a drive to build. Yet Maye admits to being occasionally bewildered by her eldest son’s intensity. She recalled him appearing at breakfast after an all-nighter designing rockets.
“And what do you answer to that… I don’t have an expertise to offer,” she said. “I can just offer scrambled eggs.”
But she also witnesses a tender side of the tech mogul the public rarely sees.
“When he’s with his kids, no one else exists. He just plays with them,” she said. “He’s just lovable. He’s funny. But he is brilliant. He’s a genius. He really is one of a kind, and a genius of the world.”
Defending Her Son in the Public Arena
Since her 2019 book, A Woman Makes a Plan, public scrutiny of Elon has intensified. He has become a political lightning rod, drawing threats against Kimbal’s restaurants, vandalism at Tesla dealerships, and heated rhetoric. Maye has taken an active role in challenging media narratives she views as unfair, tracking down journalists on X (formerly Twitter) to confront them directly.
“I would find the journalist who wrote the story. I found their tag so that I could tag them and say, ‘shame on you,’” she said. “I’m angry … it gave me a lot of comfort. It didn’t stop them.”
Her political engagement extends offline. She recounted a confrontation with a friend advocating for open borders. When Maye asked if the friend would want to live next to undocumented young men, the response was telling:
“As long as it’s not near me.”
The Long Road to American Citizenship
The immigration debate is deeply personal for Maye. Despite her father and grandparents being American-born Midwesterners, her Canadian birth meant roughly 12 years on visas working as a dietitian and model before obtaining a green card, followed by another five-year wait for citizenship.
“[When] you get your citizenship … you just cry. You’re just so happy,” she recalled.
No Retirement in Sight
With upcoming shoots and speeches scheduled for Hong Kong, Austin, Buenos Aires, and Shanghai, Maye remains laser-focused on what comes next. When asked why she keeps pushing near 80, she dismisses the premise of retirement entirely.
“I’m having the best time.”