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Errol Musk, the 79-year-old father of Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, described a harrowing 1998 incident where he fatally shot three armed intruders. In an interview with the Anything Goes with James English podcast this week, he claimed the men would have ritualistically murdered and cannibalized his six-year-old daughter Ali had he not defended them.
The incident occurred at one of his rental properties in Sandton, Johannesburg. Errol was visiting to check on some painting work with his daughter when “about seven or eight men” breached the property’s electric fence.
He’d been preparing a bath for Ali when he heard noises from the lounge area. Upon investigation, he encountered the intruders – including one man oddly dressed in formal attire.
“He brought up his left arm, I presumed he wanted to shake hands,” Errol recounted. “He had a black jacket on and I saw his hand come up, but then I saw the sparks come from his hands and he fired a weapon at me with his left hand more or less from the hip.”
Drawing on his two decades of karate training, Errol managed to evade the shot.
The bullet missed him, shattering a glass door instead.
Errol then rushed to retrieve his .357 Magnum revolver from the bathroom. “I took out the guy with the tie, the one who shot me to the head. And that bullet went into the chap behind him as well,” he explained. A third attacker was hit in the hip and later died from his wounds.
According to Errol, the intruders fired 52 shots at him without landing a single hit, while he neutralized three attackers with just two bullets. The intense gunfire did leave him with hearing loss in one ear.
Following the confrontation, Errol and his daughter escaped through a broken window and flagged down help on the street before going into hiding. Although initially charged with manslaughter, he was later acquitted on self-defense grounds.
“I wasn’t proud of it, but what could I do? It was me or them,” he said. “My daughter’s head would be hanging from a taxi at this moment, dangling from a taxi mirror if I let them get their way. My 6-year-old daughter’s head would be dangling from a taxi mirror. Because they eat them and they use the children as medicine.”
