You probably know Elon Musk’s mother, Maye. She’s a supermodel, a dietitian, and a frequent guest at high-profile tech events. But if you want to understand where the "hardcore" engineering mindset and the obsession with high-stakes risk-taking actually come from, you have to look at her father.
Joshua Haldeman was a man who lived like he was the protagonist of a pulp adventure novel. He was a chiropractor, a politician, an amateur archaeologist, and a pilot who once flew 30,000 miles in a single-engine plane with no radio.
Honestly, he was also a man of deep, dark contradictions.
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While his grandson builds rockets to Mars, Joshua Haldeman was busy trying to find a lost city in the Kalahari Desert. He was a pioneer in his field and a radical who eventually left North America entirely because he thought it had gone "soft." To understand Elon, you’ve basically got to understand the ghost of Joshua Haldeman.
From the Dust Bowl to the Pilot’s Seat
Joshua Norman Haldeman wasn't born into wealth. He was born in Minnesota in 1902 but grew up in the harsh prairies of Saskatchewan, Canada. Life there was brutal.
His mother, Almeda, was actually Canada’s first female chiropractor. That’s a detail most people miss—the family had a tradition of being "firsts" and outsiders in medicine long before Elon started disrupting the auto industry.
When the Great Depression hit, Joshua lost everything. He was a farmer, and the Dust Bowl took his land. Most people would have given up. Instead, he went back to school, became a chiropractor like his mother, and built the largest practice in Canada.
He didn't just stop at fixing backs. He got into politics. He joined the Technocracy movement—a group of people who believed that politicians were useless and that the world should be run by engineers and scientists. Sound familiar?
The Flight to South Africa
In 1950, Joshua made a move that baffled his neighbors. He packed up his entire life—including his 1948 Bellanca Cruisair airplane—and moved to South Africa.
Why?
There are a few ways to look at this. Some biographers, like Walter Isaacson, suggest it was his "adventurous spirit." Joshua felt that the Canadian government was becoming too bureaucratic. He wanted a place where a man could be free.
But there is a darker side to the story that historians like Jill Lepore have highlighted. Haldeman was a vocal supporter of the apartheid system. He wrote articles and pamphlets defending the white minority government, claiming they were the only ones capable of maintaining "civilization" in Africa.
He wasn't just a pilot; he was a man with a very specific, and often exclusionary, world view.
The Man Who Flew Without a Radio
If there is one thing Elon inherited from Joshua, it is a complete lack of fear regarding physical danger.
In 1954, Joshua and his wife Winnifred decided to fly from Africa to Australia and back. In a single-engine plane. Over the ocean.
They didn't have a radio. They didn't have modern navigation. They used maps and a compass. It was a 30,000-mile journey that took them through Asia and across some of the most remote parts of the planet. At the time, it was likely the longest flight ever attempted by a private pilot in that kind of aircraft.
"My grandfather had this desire for adventure, exploration—doing crazy things." — Elon Musk
Elon grew up on these stories. He sat through slide shows of his grandfather’s expeditions. He heard about the time the wheels of Joshua's plane caught on a power line. He heard about the twelve different trips into the Kalahari to find the "Lost City."
Joshua eventually died in 1974 doing exactly what he loved. He was 72. He was practicing landings and hit a wire. The plane flipped. He died instantly.
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The Technocracy Connection
We have to talk about the Technocracy movement because it is the blueprint for how the Musk family sees the world.
In the 1930s, Joshua was "Technocrat No. 10450-1." The movement’s core idea was that "price-system" economics (money) was inefficient. They wanted a society managed by technical experts who could optimize resources using the scientific method.
When you see Elon Musk trying to optimize Twitter's code or building a "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE), you are seeing the ghost of Joshua Haldeman’s political philosophy.
- Rule by Experts: Joshua believed politicians were the problem.
- Optimization: Everything could be solved with better engineering.
- Risk: Stability is a trap; progress requires radical leaps.
What This Means for Us Today
Understanding Joshua Haldeman helps strip away the "luck" narrative often associated with billionaires. It shows that Elon Musk didn't just appear out of nowhere; he is the product of a multi-generational lineage of people who were intensely individualistic, technologically obsessed, and willing to move across the globe to find a place that matched their ideology.
Actionable Insights from the Haldeman Legacy:
- Examine your lineage of risk: We often inherit our relationship with fear. If you find yourself playing it too safe, look back at your family history. Sometimes breaking a "safety" cycle starts with recognizing where it came from.
- Beware of Technocratic tunnel vision: Joshua’s life shows that being a brilliant engineer or doctor doesn't make you right about how society should function. Technical brilliance can sometimes blind people to human rights or social nuances.
- Resilience is a skill: Joshua lost his farm and started over in his 30s. He moved to a new continent in his 40s. It’s never too late to reinvent your "mission," even if the world thinks you're crazy.
The story of Joshua Haldeman isn't just a footnote in a biography. It’s the origin story of a mindset that is currently reshaping our world, from the cars we drive to the satellites orbiting our heads.
If you want to understand the future of tech, start by reading about the man who died in 1974 with his hands on the controls of a Bellanca Cruisair.
Next Steps for Deepening Your Knowledge:
Read the 1995 academic paper by Scott Haldeman (Joshua’s son) titled Joshua N Haldeman, DC: The Canadian Years to see the professional side of his chiropractic career, or look for archival copies of the book The Flying Haldemans for a firsthand account of their aerial adventures.