Maye Musk says she still had to mediate Elon and Kimbal’s fights after they became startup founders

Maye Musk said she helped her sons navigate the early days of building their startup, Zip2.

In her memoir, "Timeless," released September 15, Maye described her sons' differing guidance styles and the family meetings she held to thief them activity done disagreements.

She recalled an incident erstwhile her sons fought complete an underperforming worker at Zip2.

Her eldest son, Elon Musk, was "about the facts," moreover arsenic a kid, she wrote.

"When it came to managing employees, he erstwhile again saw the facts. If you're not moving effectively, you should beryllium fired. Simple," Maye wrote. However, her different son, Kimbal Musk, "was ever focused connected people."

"He would person a warm, individual narration pinch the worker successful question, and truthful wanted to first understand why they weren't performing and past thief them improve," Maye wrote.

Their contrasting approaches sometimes caused friction, but besides made the brothers effective business partners, allowing each to complement the other's strengths, she wrote.

The brothers besides had regular family meetings pinch her, truthful she could thief mediate their differences.

"During our meetings, I'd thief them travel up pinch compromises and determine connected their adjacent steps," Maye wrote, adding that they would revisit the aforesaid issues the pursuing week to talk what had happened and really to move forward.

"Even arsenic young adults, they needed a mother's help," Maye wrote.

Maye said she didn't recognize "how important the meetings were to them" until she tried to cancel 1 to spell to a barbecue, and "Elon wouldn't person it."

"I ended up giving successful and helping the boys talk and resoluteness their issues," she wrote.

Savings, laundry, and unpaid work

Beyond mediating her sons' disagreements, Maye said she utilized her savings to thief screen their early business costs and took connected the home labour to support them.

"I had $10,000 successful savings from my 7 years successful Toronto and had fixed it each to Elon and Kimbal to screen costs, including rent connected their first office," Maye wrote.

The brothers slept successful the one-room agency and showered astatine the YMCA, truthful Maye said she took the cheapest formation from Toronto to San Francisco each six weeks to thief them nevertheless she could.

"They wouldn't extremity to return attraction of themselves. I did what I could to capable the gap. I'd enactment successful a edifice adjacent their agency and walk the clip doing laundry, shopping for food, and covering agency expenses specified arsenic instrumentality and printing," Maye wrote.

After Zip2 was sold, Tosca Musk — Maye's girl and Elon and Kimbal's sister — was asked to thief adjacent the company's San Diego office.

Tosca had been moving for the company, and sharing a four-bedroom flat pinch 3 antheral Zip2 employees, who near it "disgustingly dirty," Maye wrote.

Maye said she flew to San Diego to meet her daughter, and together they spent 12 hours cleaning the flat earlier returning it to the owner.

"We washed and ironed each the sheets, made the beds, laundered the towels, vacuumed the carpet, wiped the level successful the kitchen, cleaned retired the fridge and cupboards, and scrubbed everything, including the soiled bathrooms," she wrote.

All 3 of her kids went connected to make names for themselves successful different fields.

Elon, now the world's richest person, leads Tesla and SpaceX. He acquired Twitter, now X, successful 2022 and concisely was a typical authorities worker pinch the Department of Government Efficiency successful the Trump management successful 2025.

Kimbal moved into the nutrient industry, cofounding The Kitchen Restaurant Group, the municipality farming startup Square Roots, and the nonprofit Big Green. He sits connected Tesla's committee and served connected SpaceX's committee from its founding until January 2022.

Tosca, a filmmaker, cofounded Passionflix, a streaming work for movies adapted from romance novels.