Elon Musk’s mother tells critics to ‘stop being mean to him’

In a new BBC documentary, Maye Musk defended her son and urged his growing cast of critics to “stop being mean to him.”

Musk said her son “gets a lot of hate” for his success at so many companies, including Tesla and SpaceX. It’s unclear if the interview was conducted before it was taken over by Twitter, which is where much of the current criticism focuses.

After a yo-yo over whether or not he’d buy the social media company for $4 billion, Musk has made a series of controversial decisions since the deal closed, summarily laying off and implementing half of the company’s employees (and quickly pausing ). A paid verification system that resulted in a slew of “verified” celebrity, athlete, and corporate accounts causing problems for the real ones.

More recently, he has been criticized for firing Twitter engineers who criticize him despite his previous vow to be a free speech advocate.

Musk has been a fervent supporter of her son for years but has said that despite her family ties, skipping the line to get a Tesla Model 3 didn’t help her.

Maye Musk has been a model for five decades and was named one of the faces of CoverGirl in 2017 at the age of 69. She has also been in campaigns for Target, Virgin America. In 2013, she starred in Beyoncé’s music video for Haunted. She is also a dietitian and nutritionist with two master’s degrees.