Biography | Elon Musk — Born in Pretoria Before the School on Waterkloof Hill

People treat Hawthorne and Austin as the first addresses that mattered. Elon Reeve Musk was born on 28 June 1971 in Pretoria, then the administrative capital of apartheid South Africa. His father, Errol, was an electromechanical engineer. His mother, Maye Haldeman, was a Canadian-born dietitian and model. The school that still stands is Pretoria Boys High School, at 251 Roper Street in Brooklyn, on Waterkloof Hill opposite the Union Buildings. He finished there after Waterkloof House and Bryanston. The pin is the hill, not a childhood house whose street no longer maps cleanly. Pretoria is also the city people skip. Kingston took the first university term. Philadelphia took the degrees. Palo Alto took the first company. In 1989, with a Canadian passport through his mother, he left. The later filings list South Africa, Canada and the United States. The first line is still Pretoria. 28 June 1971 is the date. The school on Roper Street is the building a visitor can still walk past. Photo: Wikimedia Commons, Pretoria Union Buildings from the ridge above Brooklyn