Elon Musk’s dad says he arranged son’s call with South African leader

South Africa’s president needed to call Elon Musk on Monday evening.

The billionaire had publicly accused his post-apartheid government of anti-white racism, and now Musk’s ally, U.S. President Donald Trump, said he would cut more than $400 million in funding to the country.

So Bejani Chauke, an adviser to Cyril Ramaphosa, the South African president, called Musk’s father, Errol, a 78-year-old engineer who lives in a luxury double-storey coastal villa a two-hour drive from Cape Town, Musk senior said.

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“I was asked if I can arrange a quick talk between Ramaphosa and Elon last night … so I did and then they spoke a few minutes later,” Errol Musk told Reuters at his home in Langebaan, a mostly white enclave looking onto a lagoon fed by the Atlantic Ocean where he keeps a Bentley and a Rolls-Royce.

He briefly showed an exchange of WhatsApp messages between himself and Chauke that backed up his account. Chauke did not respond to questions by Reuters about his role in contacting Musk’s father. Ramaphosa’s office confirmed the phone conversation with Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa, in a post on the tycoon’s X social media platform.

Contacted by Reuters, Ramaphosa’s spokesperson declined to comment on how the conversation with Elon Musk came about or on its content, only saying: “Errol Musk is a private citizen, his views are his personal views.”

Elon Musk did not reply to multiple requests for comment from Reuters.

The trigger for the sudden flurry of backdoor diplomacy was a post on Sunday by Trump who said – without citing evidence – that “South Africa is confiscating land” and “certain classes of people” were being treated “very badly”.

He added that he would cut off funding to the country in response, prompting a nearly 2% slide in South Africa’s rand in early trading on Monday, and a fall in stocks and government bonds. The cost of insuring South African debt against default rose to its highest since early August.

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Trump was referring to a bill signed into law by Ramaphosa last month with the aim of addressing racial disparities in land ownership that have persisted in South Africa since apartheid ended 30 years ago — a target of public criticism by Elon Musk and many white farmers.