Maye Musk (néeHaldeman; born April 19, 1948)[2] is a model and
dietitian.[3][4] She has been a model for 50 years, appearing on the covers of magazines, including a Time magazine health edition,
Women's Day, international editions of
Vogue, and
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. She is the mother of
Elon Musk,
Kimbal Musk and
Tosca Musk.[5] She holds Canadian, South African, and American citizenship. She is a registered dietitian.
Early life and career
Maye Haldeman was born on April 19, 1948, in
Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, a twin[6] and one of five children.[3] Her family moved to
Pretoria,
South Africa, in 1950. Her parents, Winnifred Josephine "Wyn" (Fletcher) and Dr. Joshua Norman Haldeman, a former director of
Technocracy Incorporated, a former Regina
chiropractor and amateur
archaeologist,[7][8][9] were adventurous and flew the family around the world in a
prop plane in 1952. For over ten years, the family spent time roaming the
Kalahari desert in search of its fabled
Lost City of the Kalahari. Their parents gave slide shows and talks about their journeys.[3] "My parents were very famous,[7] but they were never snobs," she said.[3] Joshua Haldeman was a political activist who ran for the
Canadian Parliament on the
Social Credit Party ticket, and headed the Canadian branch of the
Technocracy movement.[7][10] In 1956 Dr. Haldeman participated on the 3rd edition of the trans-Africa
Algiers-Cape Town Rally with a Ford Ranch-Wagon 5.4L and finished tied for 1st place.[11]
As her parents were entrepreneurs, Musk started working at about 8 years of age, where she would "prepare her parents monthly bulletins and photocopy newsletters, and then put the stamps on the envelopes.”[12] By the age of 12, before and then after school, Musk worked as a receptionist alongside her twin sister for their father.
As a young woman, Haldeman was a finalist in the 1969 Miss South Africa beauty competition.[3] In 1970, she married
Errol Musk, a South African engineer she met in high school. They had three children:
Elon Musk,
Kimbal Musk, and
Tosca Musk. She named Elon after her American grandfather, John Elon Haldeman (born in
Illinois).[13][14]
In 1979, she divorced Errol Musk. Two years later, Elon, who was about 10 at the time, decided to live with his father, as he had the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and a computer, things which Maye could not afford to give the children, as a single parent.[15] Kimbal joined Elon four years later.[3] After graduating from high school, Elon decided to move to Canada; in 1989, six months later, Maye moved to Canada with her daughter Tosca.[16]
Her modelling career continued in Canada and the United States.[16] She has appeared on boxes of
Special K cereal,[3] in
Revlon ads,[3] and in a
Beyoncé video ("
Haunted").[3] She appeared nude on the cover of Time magazine for a health issue[16] and also nude on the cover of New York magazine in 2011 with a fake pregnant belly.[16] She was on the cover of Elle Canada in 2012,[16] and starred in advertisement campaigns for
Target and
Virgin America.[16] In September 2017, she became CoverGirl's oldest
spokesmodel at age 69, which one news story reported as "making history".[18][19] In 2022, at age 74, she was the oldest Sports Illustrated swimsuit model to date, appearing on the
cover of the annual issue.[20]
In addition to modelling, she has a business as a dietitian and gives presentations worldwide.[16]
She wrote a memoir titled A Woman Makes a Plan: Advice for a Lifetime of Adventure, Beauty, and Success (2019).[21]
In an interview with Forbes magazine, Musk said her greatest achievement was "having three great kids and surviving".[12]
In April 2023, Musk received an honorary doctorate from the
University of the Free State in South Africa for her work as a dietitian.[24]
In 2023, Musk signed with Chinese electronics giant
Oppo to be the global ambassador for its flagship smartphone.[25] Musk will appear in a series of commercials and events.