Errol Musk, the 79-year-old father of Elon and Kimbal Musk, has given one of the most revealing interviews about the Musk family’s relationship with crypto.
In an exclusive interview with BeInCrypto, Errol revealed that his two sons jointly hold 23,400 Bitcoin, worth approximately $1.7 billion at current prices. Neither Elon nor Kimbal has commented on their father’s statement.
The disclosure came in an interview with BeInCrypto, where Errol spoke candidly about his personal views on the future of finance, his own first-hand experience with crypto payments, and what he knows — and doesn’t know — about his sons’ digital asset positions.
If the figure is accurate, the implications are significant. Tesla, the publicly traded electric vehicle company Elon founded and leads, currently holds 11,509 BTC on its balance sheet — ranking it 12th among the largest publicly traded Bitcoin holders globally.
SpaceX holds an additional 8,285 BTC. The 23,400 BTC Errol attributes to his sons personally would exceed Tesla’s entire corporate position by nearly double — and would represent one of the largest known personal Bitcoin holdings of any individual in the world.
“The Old Model Is Finished”
Errol Musk’s views on crypto go beyond family gossip. The retired electromechanical engineer and businessman spoke with the kind of conviction that comes from personal experience, not theory.
“I have no doubt that crypto will be the future of finance. The old model has run its course, it’s finished,” he told BeInCrypto. “The new form of money management is clearly crypto.”
His reasoning is grounded in something most crypto advocates rarely cite — the practical impossibility of moving money across borders through traditional banking. As a South African who has dealt with international transfers, Errol described the experience of trying to move money through a bank as “practically impossible. Crypto, in his experience, solves that immediately.
“It’s an amazing form of money movement. For example, if I’m in South Africa and I want to bring some money from America through a bank, it’s impossible. They make it so impossible through the bank. If I go to my friends in crypto, they do it immediately, no problem,” he said.
That perspective — crypto as a practical tool for people locked out of functional banking infrastructure — is one of the most compelling real-world arguments for digital assets, and it carries more weight coming from a 79-year-old engineer in South Africa than from a venture capitalist in San Francisco.
The Family’s Crypto Experience Goes Beyond Bitcoin
Errol also revealed that the Musk family’s crypto involvement isn’t limited to Bitcoin. At some point, they received a payment in Solana — an amount he described as roughly equivalent to “a little more than a million rubles” at the time. The timing worked out well.
The detail is notable for two reasons. First, it confirms that the Musk family has been transacting in crypto assets beyond Bitcoin — including receiving payment in altcoins and navigating the timing of exits. Second, the casual mention of “getting out at the peak” suggests a level of active management of crypto positions that goes beyond simple buy-and-hold.
Errol also noted that he has personally met both Changpeng Zhao — founder of Binance — and the founder of Bybit, and has received crypto that bypassed traditional banking channels entirely. For a 79-year-old who describes himself as “old-fashioned” and admits he still uses a bank card, his proximity to the industry’s most prominent figures is striking.
Elon Musk’s Crypto Footprint Is Larger Than Most People Realize
The interview adds personal detail to a corporate picture that was already significant. As of April 2026, Elon Musk’s connection to crypto runs through multiple channels simultaneously.
On the corporate side, Tesla holds 11,509 BTC — a position that has been on the balance sheet since the company’s high-profile $1.5 billion Bitcoin purchase in early 2021. SpaceX holds a separate 8,285 BTC position. Together, the two companies Elon leads control nearly 20,000 BTC in corporate treasury — one of the largest combined corporate Bitcoin positions in existence.
Beyond Bitcoin, Elon has publicly acknowledged holding Dogecoin and Ethereum. His relationship with Dogecoin in particular has been one of the most market-moving dynamics in recent crypto history — his tweets have repeatedly driven double-digit price movements in the token, which he has described as “the people’s crypto” and whose developer community he has actively engaged with.
Platform X, formerly Twitter, has been pursuing crypto payments integration as part of its broader financial services expansion. The combination of Elon’s personal holdings, his companies’ corporate positions, and X’s payments ambitions makes him arguably the single most influential individual at the intersection of tech, finance, and crypto.
A Father Who Doesn’t Own Any Crypto — But Thinks It’s the Future
The most interesting character in this story might be Errol himself. Despite his conviction that crypto is the future of finance, despite his personal experience receiving crypto payments, despite knowing the founders of two of the world’s largest exchanges — he doesn’t own any digital assets.
“What I know about it is small, but it’s a big thing. I am still old-fashioned. I have a bank card,” he told BeInCrypto. “Altogether, I’m not an expert, but it’s clearly fascinating stuff.”
That combination of genuine belief and personal non-participation is more relatable than most crypto endorsements. He’s not selling anything. He’s not promoting a token. He’s a 79-year-old engineer who has watched his sons build extraordinary positions in an asset class he can’t fully navigate himself — and who believes, without reservation, that the old financial system is finished.
Whether or not the 23,400 BTC figure holds up to scrutiny — and without confirmation from Elon or Kimbal, it remains unverified — the broader picture Errol paints is consistent with everything the public record already shows. The Musk family’s exposure to Bitcoin is enormous. Their influence on the crypto market is real. And apparently, their father thinks the banks had it coming.