Elon Musk Was Raised Under Racist Apartheid Laws in South Africa. What Does He Believe Now?

Watch Part 2 of our interview with reporter Chris McGreal, who was Johannesburg correspondent for The Guardian during the last years of apartheid through 2002. His new pieces for The Guardian are headlined “What does Elon Musk believe?” and “How the roots of the 'PayPal mafia' extend to apartheid South Africa.” Elon Musk was born in 1971 in Johannesburg, and McGreal discusses Musk’s grandfather, Joshua Haldeman, who immigrated to South Africa in 1950 when apartheid became “in many ways reminiscent of the Nazi Nuremberg laws against Jews in the 1930s. They have very similar echoes in stripping Black people of the right to work in certain places, their movements, controlling them, confining them to areas.” McGreal also responds to a new report from Semafor that the South African government is examining how Musk’s companies can invest in the country without complying with the nation’s Black empowerment rules.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! Audio and was authored by Democracy Now!.