Maye Musk whitethorn beryllium champion known arsenic the mother of Elon Musk, the world's richest person. But astatine 78, she has besides built a career of her own arsenic a dietitian, model, author, and nationalist speaker.
In her latest memoir, "Timeless," released September 15, Musk looks backmost connected her childhood, divorce, and years arsenic a moving azygous mother of three, arsenic good arsenic the profession breakthroughs she recovered later successful life.
Here are 3 lessons from the book connected getting older, beauty standards, and why Musk sees nary logic to slow down.
Some of life's champion chapters tin travel later
In the memoir, Musk wrote that she admired group who thrived from a very young age, and considered herself a precocious bloomer.
"Maybe that's an understatement. I bloomed truthful precocious that astir of the things I'm known for didn't hap until aft I turned fifty," she wrote.
Musk wrote that she didn't locomotion runways successful New York, Paris, aliases Milan until aft 50, and her Times Square advertisements came erstwhile "most group my property were considering retirement."
Her later years brought a drawstring of caller opportunities.
In 2017, Musk became CoverGirl's oldest spokesperson astatine 69. Two years later, astatine 71, she published her first memoir, "A Woman Makes a Plan: Advice for a Lifetime of Adventure, Beauty, and Success."
"And astatine seventy-four — achromatic hair, wrinkles, life experience, and each —I became the oldest screen exemplary successful Sports Illustrated history. I still grin reasoning astir it," Musk wrote. She held this title until Martha Stewart made the screen astatine 81 the pursuing year.
Aging isn't thing to conceal
Musk wrote successful her memoir that she stopped bleaching her hairsbreadth erstwhile she was nearing 60, aft emotion down. As her achromatic roots grew in, she trim her hairsbreadth short and recovered she loved the caller look.
Her agent, however, was not impressed. When she saw Musk's caller hairsbreadth and photos, she warned that she would "never activity again," Musk wrote.
Instead, Musk realized her statement allowed her to nonstop her caller photos to agencies extracurricular New York City. Fifteen signed her and booked her for activity crossed Europe and the US. She besides caught the oculus of a Time mag casting director, who noticed Musk stepping her canine each morning, starring to a photograph characteristic wrong the magazine.
Elsewhere successful the memoir, Musk recounts her first hesitation complete appearing successful Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Issue, because her agents had agelong told her she did not person a "swimsuit body."
"Even astatine my smallest, my bottommost ne'er did that point the magazines usually look for successful a swimsuit exemplary — smoothly transitioned into my thigh without a fold — and it surely didn't do that now," she wrote.
She worried astir showing her wrinkles and cellulite, but her girl encouraged her to do it, truthful she reconsidered.
"What was I truthful acrophobic of? Men ne'er interest astir their wrinkles; they adhd gravitas. Overweight men still locomotion proudly successful their small speedos. Women summation 5 pounds and we hide down our towels. All those years of indoctrination from agents and the manufacture — it was clip to propulsion each that delirium out," Musk wrote. "I would locomotion proudly and show the world really happy and patient I was successful my swimsuit, and my seventy-plus-year-old body."
There's nary deadline for meaningful work
Musk's activity arsenic a dietitian has remained important to her, too. In the memoir, she wrote that her alma mater, the University of theState successful Bloemfontein, South Africa, awarded her an honorary doctorate successful dietetics successful 2023.
Although she nary longer practices, Musk has continued to support up pinch nutrition research.
"Once a dietitian, ever a dietitian. I'm moreover still registered. Every 5 years, I walk seventy-five exams to support my legalization current. It takes immoderate time, but I bask staying up-to-date connected nutritional subject research," Musk wrote.
Reflecting connected aging, Musk wrote that she has travel to spot it arsenic an description of possibility, not a narrowing of it.
"Reinvention isn't reserved for the young; it's reserved for the brave. And courageousness tin get precocious and still alteration your life," Musk wrote.
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Amanda is simply a elder manner newsman astatine Business Insider's Singapore bureau.Her reporting explores really group navigate awesome life transitions, including profession changes, relocation, and retirement, pinch a peculiar attraction connected the experiences of those surviving successful Asia. She besides writes astir travel, culture, wellness, and relationships.In 2025, she won the Singapore Press Club's Rising Stars Young Digital Journalist Award.She antecedently worked arsenic a writer and video shaper astatine a contented trading agency successful Singapore. She graduated from the University astatine Buffalo pinch a BA (Hons) successful Sociology.
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