How Elon Musk's mother inspired a family of entrepreneurs
Last week, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk sent a tweet to his mother Maye Musk for the second time in eight years, according to a Twitter advanced search. "Hi Mom!" he wrote to Maye, who was supporting her son's message about inaccuracies in Ashlee Vance's biography on Elon.
After a few minutes of browsing through Maye's Twitter feed, it's easy to spot what she is most passionate about: advocating for her children and her career.
At 69, Maye is a model, nutritionist and full-time fan of her three entrepreneurial kids Elon, Kimbal and Tosca Musk. While Elon works on launching rockets and digging urban tunnel systems, Kimbal is pioneering a sustainable food movement and Tosca is making moves in the film industry with her upcoming launch of PassionFlix, the Netflix for romance movies.
In her adolescent and teen days, Maye helped her father with his chiropractor clinic, working as a receptionist and putting client newsletters together, Paul Armstrong reports for Forbes.
The Musk siblings have their mom to thank for teaching them at a young age the importance of creating your own opportunities.
When they were young, modeling was a side gig for Maye, a single mother who raised her kids with help from her twin sister Kaye, reports Emily Jane Fox for Vanity Fair in 2015.
"They grow up knowing you work hard, and the harder you work, the better you do and the luckier you get," Maye told Vanity Fair in 2015. "They also had to be responsible for themselves, because they had to help me."
Maye Musk Elon mom u r a genius tweet
Maye continues inspiring her family as a champion of inclusion and diversity in modeling while steadily advancing her career. Last year, she signed with agency IMG Models, which represents runway icons like Miranda Kerr, Gisele Bündchen and Karlie Kloss.
Maye's penchant for keeping optimistic and working hard appears to be inherited from her father, as she wrote on her Twitter and Instagram recently: "'Keep Smiling' was my Dad's motto. #happyfamily."
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