Justine Musk, Elon Musk’s first wife and the mother of his five children, has a lot to say about her life with the man who’s now one of the most famous entrepreneurs in the world. From their early days in college to the ups and downs of their relationship, she doesn’t hold back in a talk titled “Visionaries are People Who Can See in the Dark” at the TEDxUIUC conference.
“I met him when I was 18. He was 19,” she says. They crossed paths in college, where Elon was already showing the determination he’s now known for. “He would call me up and ask me out, and I would say no. And it went on like this until we ended up living together.”
They started small, sharing an apartment with three roommates and a dachshund that, as she put it, “was not house trained.” Later, even after they’d made it big and moved into a mansion in Bel Air, she jokes, “The dachshund still was not house trained.” Justine shares moments like these, reminding us that even as they climbed to the top, some things just didn’t change.
Elon’s personality? She remembers that too. While many see him as this larger-than-life character, she recalls, “He always put ‘engineer’ on forms instead of ‘CEO.'” And his wardrobe? Pretty much jeans and T-shirts. Even when a stylist tried to update his look, he would say, “I can’t look cool or hip because I have to look like an engineer.”
In an interview, one of the more eyebrow-raising moments for Justine came when Elon mentioned that he was “prepared to sacrifice everything” to achieve his goal of sending a rocket into orbit – even if it meant the entire family ending up in her parents’ basement. With her typical wit, she says, “I wanted to go back in time and tell him, ‘Have you seen my parents’ basement?'”
She also touched on Elon’s portrayal in The Simpsons and the line that stuck with her. A character hints that “someone like Elon must have a darkness in his soul.” That line hit home for Justine. As a dark fantasy writer, she adds, “Darkness doesn’t mean evil … it can mean anything that hasn’t yet been brought to the light.” That perspective on Elon’s mind helps paint a picture of a man driven by things most of us will never fully understand.
As she reflects on their years together, Justine offers a funny and insightful view of Elon, showing what it’s really like to live with someone whose ambitions stretch far beyond the everyday. “Visionaries take their passion and put themselves on the line unlike anybody else,” she says, and from her stories, it’s clear Elon was no exception.
