Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has been referred to as the Thomas Edison of the modern moment.
The South African born 46-year-old has revolutionised the electric car, was instrumental in the creation of PayPal and is now making some of the greatest innovations in space travel the world has ever seen.
“He does what he wants, and he is relentless about it,” Elon Musk’s first wife, Justine Musk, once said. And it is unequivocally this quality that has made him the best on the planet at what he does.
But it also – according to his ex-wives – makes him a very particular kind of husband.
“It’s Elon’s world,” Justine continued, “and the rest of us just live in it.”
Justine Wilson – now an author – and Elon Musk met at Queen’s University in Ontario. In an interview with Marie Claire, Justine recalled Musk lending her his credit card to buy as many books as she wanted.
In 2000, the two married, and Justine recalls an unusual conversation they had on the day of their wedding.
As they danced at their reception, Musk said to her, “I am the alpha in this relationship,” and though it was an unusual thing to say, Justine implicitly trusted him.
A few months later, she also trusted him when he presented her with a postnuptial agreement, one that would serve Musk very well in the future.
“I shrugged it off,” Justine wrote in Marie Claire in 2010. “But as time went on, I learned that he was serious.
“He had grown up in the male-dominated culture of South Africa, and the will to compete and dominate that made him so successful in business did not magically turn off when he came home.”
Often, she would find herself snapping at Musk, “I am your wife, not your employee.”
He would swiftly respond, “If you were my employee, I would fire you.”
