this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2025

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TIL that US Ex-Nazi Rocket Scientist Werner Von Braun wrote a scifi book where the Martian government is ruled by a single leader called "The Elon" (en.wikipedia.org)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/til

21 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Not only that, but Errol Musk, Elon's father has been quoted that he read the book and named Elon after this character. And Elon's grandfather was a member of a pro-Hitler fascist group in the '30s and '40s.

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[–] [email protected] 107 points 1 week ago (7 children)

Seems like a no, unfortunately.

Because, if the publishing history for von Braun’s book on Wikipedia is correct, then Errol couldn’t have heard about it when he was a child and used it as the basis for naming his son – as it wasn’t actually published until well after Elon Musk was born.

(It should be noted that the technical appendix to the book, which contained the specifications for the novel’s expedition to Mars, was published earlier: in Germany in 1952, and in English the following year – however, this appendix as it appears in Project Mars does not contain any mention of ‘Elon’.)

https://www.dailygrail.com/2024/12/did-elon-musks-father-confirm-that-he-was-named-after-the-martian-leader-in-a-science-fiction-novel-by-a-nazi-rocket-scientist/

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago

Theres an update to in that article that says there was a rewritten version of the book that was actually published in the 1950s, but the author of the article couldn’t get his hands on a copy to verify if “The Elon” was mentioned in it. Some story possibly still holds up

[–] Jrue 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The article leaves it ambiguous whether Errol is embellishing or if it is true. From Errol's quote in that article, it seems like a weird thing to make up.

When I was child we used to build rockets, and we used to read the books of Professor Hermann Oberth and Wernher von Braun, and they had these illustrated – they weren’t really comics, they were books – but they had illustrations and they were in German unfortunately.

But the adult at that time that we were with, who discovered Bennett’s comet – his name is Mr Bennett – he would tell us what the stories were saying, about going to planets and all that sort of stuff, and we could see the illustrations and everything. And Wernher von Braun’s book I think it was – his, or it could have been Oberth’s book – spoke about that the head of the Mars colony would be called the Elon.

Now I remember that, but I never thought of it as a name. [But] then when Maye and I got married I was quite amazed to discover that her father’s grandfather or something had been called Elon Haldeman, which really reminded me of the stories that we had, and so I thought ‘well yes, I’d like that name for Elon because it means something to me’.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago

Errol is known for making shit up regarding Elon. The interview in which he mentions this is also from 2022 while the story about the coincidence is from 2017 so plenty of time for Errol to have picked up on it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

Seems making shit up runs in their family.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

It's a direct quote of Errol who described it in this interview, who apparently read it in German. Or he could be completely full of shit like his son.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

I am not sure why Errol reading it as a child vs as an adult means there is no veracity to the notion. Elon was born in 71. Could've read a nazi's book in 1971 and named his newborn after shit in the nazi book.

If excerpts were being published in magazines through the 50s you bet your ass copies were circulating amongst the party faithful.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

So you're telling me it's just a "happy" accident?