Elon Musk’s grandfather, the figure who cultivated his love of risk and his capacity for resilience

Joshua Haldeman, Elon Musk’s grandfather, instilled in him an attraction to risk, adventure and innovation

“Like wood, like wood,” goes the popular saying and the case of Elon Musk is no exception. The technology magnate, creator of SpaceX and Neuralink, has a striking similarity to his maternal grandfather, Joshua Norman Haldeman, as if his personalities had been copied. It was from this figure that he learned from a very young age that he who does not risk, does not win.

Born in 1902 in the United States and raised in Canada, Haldeman emerged from a tough, humble and challenging environment, which would shape his character and determination from an early age, as did his grandson, Elon. Although the technological genius only shared with him until he was 3 years old, that time was crucial in his life.

Joshua Haldeman – father of four children, including twins Maye Musk and Kaye – would soon be known for his achievements in chiropractic, his political and economic influence, and his adventures.

Musk’s grandfather was the first, along with his family, to travel the South Africa-Australia route by small plane in search of an ancient “lost city” that was, theoretically, across the Kalahari Desert.

Elon Musk’s grandfather died when the tycoon was 3 years old, however he left a mark on his personality (Joshua Haldeman Archive)

If there is something in which Elon is similar to his grandfather, it is in the attraction for risk, great feats, the importance that both give to technology and the resilient spirit. Long before Elon thought about sending people to Mars or connecting brains to computers, his grandfather was innovating in other fields.

“He knew that true adventures entail risks. “Risk gave him energy,” Musk comments about his grandfather in his biography, while the similarities are obvious.

Life on the Canadian prairies at the beginning of the 20th century was hard and Joshua Haldeman’s life was marked by tragedies from his childhood, like that of Elon. First, Joshua had to become strong after the loss of his father, John Elon Haldeman, to diabetes in August 1909. Joshua was just 7 years old and had a life ahead of him.

According to Elon himself about his grandfather in a tweet on the social network In 1915, the subsequent marriage of his mother to Heseltine Wilson, a man of English origin, also marked his personality.

Joshua Haldeman was an intrepid adventurer, which led him to be a rodeo rider, cowboy and laborer before becoming a chiropractic professional (Joshua Haldeman Archive)

Despite challenges and adversity, Joshua demonstrated unwavering determination. His thirst for knowledge led him to attend nine colleges and universities, including the Palmer Chiropractic School, where he graduated in 1926. Controversy came to Haldeman’s life as chiropractic, by then, faced skepticism and criticism from the traditional medical community.

However, this constant pursuit of academic and professional excellence would catapult him to become a leading figure in Canadian and global chiropractic.

In turn, he played key roles in chiropractic organizations, serving as secretary and president of the South African Chiropractors Association, where he promoted chiropractic education and research. The passion to shine academically and on the public stage is another point in common with Elon.

He was also briefly married to Eve Peters. They had a son, but the marriage did not last. Financial pressures and their new political commitments took their toll and they separated.

Joshua with his daughters, Maye and Kaye, whom they nicknamed the “flying twins” (Joshua Haldeman Archive)

The grandfather of the Tesla CEO managed to acquire his own farm, but the economic crisis of the 1930s took it away. After the loss of the farm around 1934, Joshua worked various jobs, including construction worker, cowboy, and rodeo rider. Even a biographical sketch of his candidacy for federal parliament in 1945 described his as a “colorful life.”

In 1942 he met his second wife, Winnifred Fletcher, whose adventurous streak matched his own. A biographical sketch of his candidacy for federal parliament in 1945 described a “colourful life”.

What never changed was his passion for adventure. He experienced marriage, divorce, wandered on freight trains, and snuck onto a transatlantic ship.

Elon Musk was able to spend time with his paternal grandfather until he was 3 years old, but his influence on taking risks and adventure remains to this day (Instagram Maye Musk)

From his childhood, Joshua demonstrated remarkable self-discipline and sportsmanship, participating in various athletic activities such as horseback riding, boxing, and wrestling. Raised on his stepfather’s farm in the arid plains of Canada, he acquired a solid foundation of resilience and self-confidence that would carry him through his life.

Outside of his professional career, Joshua Haldeman was an intrepid adventurer. In 1950, he decided to move to Pretoria, South Africa, a country completely unknown to him, motivated by his desire for adventure. Thus, Haldeman and his family—the four daughters, including Elon’s mother—packed their bags to embark on new adventures.

According to writer Walter Isaacson in the biography Elon Musk, During a trip, Joshua came across a “For Sale” sign next to a Luscombe single-engine plane on a farm. He, lacking cash, managed to persuade the farmer to accept his car as payment.

“Photo with my adventurous parents” said Maye Musk’s post next to the aircraft in which they performed different feats (Maye Musk’s X account)

This decision, marked by impulsiveness – Haldeman did not know how to fly – led him to hire a pilot who would not only take him home on the plane, but also teach him how to fly it. Thus, the Haldemans earned the title of the “Flying Haldemans.”

The family then adopted a motto: “Live dangerously with caution.”

As Isaacson relates in the book, a chiropractic magazine even described him as “perhaps the most extraordinary figure in the history of flying chiropractors,” a specific and accurate recognition. The family then acquired a larger single-engine plane, a Bellanca, when twins Maye and Kaye were just three months old, who would soon be nicknamed the “flying twins.”

Haldeman’s adventures ranged from embarking on long-haul flights to remote destinations like Norway to signing up for the challenging twenty thousand kilometer rally from Cape Town to Algiers, in which he tied for first place.

News clipping about the flight from South Africa to Australia with a single-engine plane, with a compass and without GPS (Maye Musk’s X account)

But if there was an emblematic feat, it was the one they performed as a family in which they made the world’s first single-engine flight from Africa to Australia, a feat that required modifying the structure of the aircraft to incorporate additional fuel tanks, according to Maye’s memories. Musk, and adds: “No GPS

His spirit also lives on in Elon Musk’s mother, who states in her son’s biography: “I know I can take a risk as long as I’m prepared.” Risk and adventure are a family business.

Joshua Haldeman was also noted for his participation in political activities through his involvement in Technocracy, Inc, an international political group that emerged in the United States in 1930. The group maintained that government had to be governed through technical and scientific decisions, rather than of policies. By then, the vision was controversial: it challenged the political and economic status quo in the midst of upheaval.

Technocracy Inc. advocated a model in which engineers and scientists, as experts, would lead the economy and society to ensure efficiency, sustainability and stability. What did this look like? Progressive by some and like a naive or even dangerous utopia by others.

Joshua Haldeman and Winnifred, his wife (Maye Musk’s X Account)

The goal of the group, of which Haldeman assumed leadership of the Canadian branch and held important positions as Director of Research and “Authorized Instructor,” was to create a society in which all citizens enjoyed a high standard of living. As?

Through the production and distribution of goods and services, based on the technical capabilities and available resources, rather than on traditional economic imperatives such as supply and demand.

His most important political ideas focused on defending economic reforms through changes in the monetary system and opposing totalitarian regimes such as Nazism, fascism and communism.

Elon and his grandfather agree on the importance of technology to solve humanity’s problems (REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo)

Haldeman, like Elon, had a worldview that valued the role of science and technology as tools for solving social problems and promoting rational, knowledge-based planning for the development of society.

Musk reflects some of the same technocratic beliefs that his grandfather promoted. The magnate has even gone so far as to say on Twitter, now X, that Mars should be governed under a technocracy.

The connection between the ideas of Technocracy Inc. and the opinions expressed by Elon Musk today, such as the proposal of a technocracy for Mars, suggests an influence of technocratic ideals on his thinking about how future societies should be structured, especially in contexts new and challenging like the colonization of other planets.