Was Elon Musk’s mother a model?

Elon Musk has been an exhausting, unnecessary presence in the news for far too long now, and it’s not going to stop any time soon.

Now that he’s firmly secured to Trump’s backside — or maybe it’s the other way around — Musk is set to occupy the news cycle incessantly for at least the next four years. Or until he and Trump suffer an extremely messy, violently public breakup.

As a result of Musk’s obnoxious dominance of the news cycle, people are searching out any unanswered questions about the selfish CEO. We already know all about the emerald mine, about Tesla, about his purchase (and subsequent tanking) of X, his ever-growing list of children, and people are scrambling to discover any yet-untold information about the eye-wateringly wealthy man. The latest topic of conversation to get the deep-dive treatment is the woman who birthed an industry titan, Maye Musk.

Did Maye Musk ever model?

It’s an extremely niche question about a woman whose connection to pop culture is thoroughly tenuous, but as Elon Musk’s star rises, so too does his mother’s. As a result, queries about Maye Musk have been sweeping the web in recent weeks, with the Musk matriarch’s history of modeling turning out to be a particularly persistent sticking point.

Maye is a gorgeous woman at 76 years old, so it’s not hard to imagine how eye-catching she was a few decades back. It’s not just her good looks — or her famous son — that she’s known for, either. Maye is a nutritionist and health advocate, as well as an author and, yes, a model. She’s been working as a model for decades, but Maye — unlike many working models — actually found her greatest success in her later years.

An advocate against ageism, Maye made a name for herself as a silver-haired fox dripping with opulence, and it allowed her to maintain an identity outside of her mega-famous son. She’s been at it for years now, and continues to work as a model to this day. She still puts out head-turning shots at 76 years old, but her career in the field starter a good six decades back, when she was only 15.

Maye was plenty popular as a young model, but it wasn’t until she stopped dying her hair and embraced her natural aging that Maye’s career truly took off. Now she’s tapped for frequent photoshoots — even appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated‘s 2022 Swimsuit Issue at 74 years old — and she leans heavily into her status as an older icon.

There’s plenty of criticism to be found for the entire Musk family, not just Elon. Still, in this, at least, it seems Maye can be celebrated. She’s taken a stand against aging people — particularly women — being shoved out of society and the spotlight, and her advocacy for health is admirable. And so is her brazen embrace of her own aging, which helps destigmatize it among older women, and reminds the public that beauty doesn’t disappear at age 40. Women remain gorgeous — and deserve to show it off — into their 70s, 80s, 90s, and beyond, and that’s something to celebrate.