Business Insider US<\/strong><\/a> recently published an article with the headline \u201cHow Elon Musk went from being bullied in Pretoria to buying Twitter\u201d.<\/p>\n The article correctly explains that Musk was born and raised in Pretoria and finished matric at Pretoria Boys High School in Hatfield.<\/p>\n It also refers to an incident during which school bullies kicked and threw Musk down a set of stairs, as mentioned in Ashlee Vance’s biography “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future.”<\/p>\n However, the article fails to report that this incident happened at Bryanston High School in Johannesburg and not Boys High.<\/p>\n Errol Musk reportedly contacted BizNews in 2015 after it published an article about Vance’s book. He told<\/a><\/strong> the publication his son was so severely hurt after the Bryanston High attack that he could not recognise him.<\/p>\n Elon had to stay in a hospital in Sandton for two weeks to recover. He was moved to Pretoria Boys High, where he completed his school years from grade 10 to matric.<\/p>\n A Bryanston High School principal told News24<\/a><\/strong> he \u201cwas saddened\u201d after learning about Musk \u201capparently\u201d being bullied at the school.<\/p>\n Elon Musk on the far left \u2014 Bryanston High School \u2014 1985 Chess A Team photo (click to enlarge)<\/p><\/div>\n The inaccuracy about Musk\u2019s upbringing is further exacerbated by reports surrounding a donation he made to Pretoria Boys High.<\/p>\n The prestigious institution is South Africa’s most expensive public school, costing R63,800 per year without boarding fees.<\/p>\n Citing Vance’s book, reports stated Musk was pessimistic about South Africa and Boys High based on how he reacted when the school requested a donation.<\/p>\n The reports claimed that Musk agreed to make a once-off R1 million donation<\/a><\/strong> on the condition that the school never contact him again.<\/p>\n However, former Pretoria Boys High headmaster Bill Schroder contradicted this version of events in a 2018 letter to BizNews.<\/p>\n He said Musk had donated to the school on several occasions, suggesting the billionaire had a wholly different experience than was described in the stories.<\/p>\n “It is true that Elon Musk did, at my request, give a donation for R1 million,” Schroder wrote.<\/p>\n “What is not true is that he disliked the country or the school so intensely that he told me not to approach him again. I, in fact did, and he sent a second donation per that request.”<\/p>\n Schroder explained he lost direct contact with Musk as his companies grew, and the school had to start working through teams of communications representatives who handled donations.<\/p>\n Musk matriculated at the school at 17, with distinctions in physical science and computer science.<\/p>\n Pretoria Boys High School main building<\/p><\/div>\n Shortly after that, he left South Africa for Canada to avoid conscription in the South African army and pursue opportunities abroad.<\/p>\n He would go on to found and sell city guide software company Zip2 and online payments platform PayPal (formerly X.com).<\/p>\n The proceeds from his sales went towards investments in SpaceX, Tesla, and Solar City in the coming years.<\/p>\n These would prove incredibly lucrative ventures, with the companies showing staggering growth.<\/p>\n According to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index<\/strong><\/a>, Musk had a net worth of $229 billion (R3.7 trillion) as of 10 May 2022.<\/p>\n That puts him some way ahead of the world’s second-richest man, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, with a net worth of $133 billion (R2.1 trillion).<\/p>\n Schroder’s letter to Biznews is below.<\/p>\n I was the Headmaster of Pretoria Boys High School from 1990 to 2009 and subsequent to my retirement was asked to head a fundraising exercise over a four year period.<\/em><\/p>\n As such, I feel it is important to set the record straight in terms of donations received from Elon Musk who matriculated at Boys High in 1988.<\/em><\/p>\n It is true that Elon Musk did, at my request, give a donation for R1 million. What is not true is that he disliked the country or the school so intensely that he told me not to approach him again.<\/em><\/p>\n I, in fact did, and he sent a second donation per that request.<\/em><\/p>\n I lost contact with him for a while as he changed PA\u2019s and on re-establishing contact, a new network for consideration of donations had been put in place and it must be understood that people with that amount of wealth have teams of people who deal with huge numbers of requests for donations. <\/em>At that point we received nothing further from him. <\/em><\/p>\n It is well documented in a number of biographies that Elon was bullied and an unhappy schoolboy in a school in Johannesburg and was moved to Pretoria Boys High in Grade 10 (Standard 8). <\/em><\/p>\n There is no evidence that he was poorly treated at Boys High and when he matriculated, he went to Canada where his mother was living.<\/em><\/p>\n Possibly what upsets me more is that the size of his donation was leaked somehow. I did the fundraising alone with the help of my secretary of 20 years and one of the bases of the fundraising was that the amount of a donation was treated in the strictest confidence. I only targeted alumni and close friends of the school and believe that our success in raising R32 million\u00a0in four years\u00a0was based on the confidentiality factor. <\/em><\/p>\n Until the publication of this article, the only thing a member of the Pretoria boys high community would know is that Elon Musk did donate as his name appears on a donor board together with his year group, making no differentiation between some who gave R100 or R1million.<\/em><\/p>\n While it is true that Elon Musk was bullied in high school, the allegation that his misery happened at Pretoria Boys High is false.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":443866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40380],"tags":[11373,68702,35,68282,405],"class_list":["post-443832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-elon-musk","tag-errol-musk","tag-headline","tag-pretoria-boys-high-school","tag-twitter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443832"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443832"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":444144,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443832\/revisions\/444144"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Bryanston-High-Chess-A-Team-Elon-Musk.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Pretoria-Boys-High.jpg\")
<\/a>
\nFull statement by Bill Schroder, headmaster of Pretoria Boys High School from 1990 to 2009 (courtesy of Biznews<\/a>)<\/h3>\n
\nNow read: Elon Musk\u2019s ambitious plans for Twitter<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"