I don't mean to represent that I think it's a fact, only that people are increasingly repeating it, which represents more negativity than I think Elon has received in the past.
Interestingly though, it was Elon who said his family owned an emerald mine:
> EM: Company death – not succeeding with the company – causes me a lot more stress than physical danger. But I’ve been in physical danger before. The funny thing is I’ve not actually been that nervous. In South Africa, my father had a private plane we’d fly in incredibly dangerous weather and barely make it back. This is going to sound slightly crazy, but my father also had a share in an Emerald mine in Zambia. I was 15 and really wanted to go with him but didn’t realize how dangerous it was. I couldn’t find my passport so I ended up grabbing my brother’s – which turned out to be six months overdue! So we had this planeload of contraband and an overdue passport from another person. There were AK-47s all over the place and I’m thinking, “Man, this could really go bad.”
Who knows what happened between when he was 15 and 17 to his family wealth that made him essentially penniless in a foreign country.
Interestingly though, it was Elon who said his family owned an emerald mine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20140802011449/http://www.forbes...
That was a Forbes interview in 2014.
The relevant section:
> JC: How do you handle fear?
> EM: Company death – not succeeding with the company – causes me a lot more stress than physical danger. But I’ve been in physical danger before. The funny thing is I’ve not actually been that nervous. In South Africa, my father had a private plane we’d fly in incredibly dangerous weather and barely make it back. This is going to sound slightly crazy, but my father also had a share in an Emerald mine in Zambia. I was 15 and really wanted to go with him but didn’t realize how dangerous it was. I couldn’t find my passport so I ended up grabbing my brother’s – which turned out to be six months overdue! So we had this planeload of contraband and an overdue passport from another person. There were AK-47s all over the place and I’m thinking, “Man, this could really go bad.”
Who knows what happened between when he was 15 and 17 to his family wealth that made him essentially penniless in a foreign country.
Edit:
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1375212880790913025
This is where Elon says he arrived in Canada with only ~2500 CAD.