Remember that saying “history repeats itself”? Generational trauma is like a whisper from the past. It’s when bad experiences your grandparents or parents had can somehow affect you, even though you weren’t there.
Imagine a game where you keep pouring a strong, caffeinated drink from one glass to another. With each pour, the drink gets watered down, right? Generational trauma can be like that. Maybe your grandparents went through something tough, and even though you weren’t there, it might still affect your parents, and maybe even you a little bit.
Now, here’s the interesting part: even famous people like Elon Musk might be affected by generational trauma. Musk- the man behind Tesla, SpaceX and now X(formerly Twitter) has reposted a video online about this concept. The video used a cool trick with glasses to show how bad experiences can get watered down over time.
We don’t know for sure if Elon Musk is thinking about his own family (we are only speculating), but his dad wasn’t always the nicest. In fact, Elon has talked about how his dad was tough on him in his growing up days. Musk in an old interview given to Rolling Stone talked about his father Errol Musk and how his childhood was not a happy one because of him.
He openly discussed the challenges he faced with his father. He was asked about being bullied at school to which he revealed that the bullying he endured was severe, almost leading to his death. He described his father had serious emotional problems, indicating that his upbringing was far from nurturing or supportive.
Musk’s biographer Walter Isaacson has also made similar indications about this in the past. In his book named ‘Elon Musk’, Isaacson has talked about Musk’s childhood memories that reflects Musk had an abusive father. The author revealed that Musk was in introvert and lacked social skills as a child. He was a “scrawny kid on the spectrum of autism” which made him an easy target for school bullies. He was often picked up and beaten at school. Once he was beaten so badly that he ended up in hospital for four days. But what followed his injuries was worse. His father sided with the bullies and called Musk a “loser” for being beaten up. It was one of the traumatic experiences of Musk’s life and that’s why Elon Musk never speaks to his father.
Coming back to the present, the retweeted video by Elon Musk focuses on how unresolved family trauma can show up in future generations. After you’ve known Musk’s childhood experiences, you can see why the video could be a thematic connection to Musk’s background. One can speculate that he might be personally reflecting on these issues.
But there are alternative explanations as well. We all know that Musk is a complex being, and his social media presence reflects that. He often mixes serious topics with humour or sarcastic content. There is a possibility that the retweet was simply a way to engage with a topic he finds intellectually motivating, or a way to spark conversation about a broader social issue. Nobody knows what Musk has on his mind!
