A photo taken of Elon Musk during his childhood shows him sitting on his mother’s lap while a black woman wearing an apron kneels next to them.
The photo does not show Elon Musk. It was taken in apartheid-era Johannesburg by a photographer who has described photographing the woman, her daughter and their maid.
An image people are claiming shows Elon Musk as a child in South Africa, sitting on his mother’s knee while an older black woman wearing an apron kneels next to them, is being shared widely online.
While the photo does show apartheid-era South Africa, it is not of Mr Musk or his mother. The picture was taken by American photographer Rosalind Fox Solomon in Johannesburg of a mother and daughter and their maid.
According to the Harvard Art Museums website, the photograph is entitled ‘Mother, Daughter and Maid (Johannesburg, South Africa)’.
In a 2016 interview for the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art, Ms Fox Solomon talked about how the woman in the picture was running a beauty business from her home.
She said of the photograph: “I went to take a picture of the mother and daughter, and she said, ‘Oh, just a minute, do you mind, I want to call’—whoever the maid was—‘my maid. I want her to be in the picture. Is that okay?’ And I said, sure. She called her in and she said, ‘Now get down on the floor.’ She had her kneel on her—and that's the picture that I got.”
She went on to say: “It's amazing because the woman who worked for her is looking very sober and she is, you know, is smiling.”
The child in the picture is not Elon Musk, but the woman’s daughter.
Most articles about the photographer or records of the photo itself give the year as 1988. A book of her photos, called The Forgotten, includes the photograph in question and has a caption saying: “Johannesburg, South Africa, 1988”.
Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa in 1971, which would make him 17 when the picture was taken. He was also 17 when he left South Africa to attend university in Canada.
We’ve written previously about content that has been miscaptioned with claims it shows public figures, including a video of a member of staff, not President Joe Biden, falling down the steps of Air Force One, and an image of Gerry Adams that some falsely claimed also featured Jeremy Corbyn.
It is important to consider whether something is real before sharing it online—you can read more about identifying misleading images in our guide here.
Image courtesy of Den Harrson
Full Fact fights for good, reliable information in the media, online, and in politics.
Bad information ruins lives. It promotes hate, damages people’s health, and hurts democracy. You deserve better.