Thousands of Saskatchewans lost their crops to drought in the '30s, among them Joshua Haldeman—a chiropractor and conspiracy theorist better known as Elon Musk's grandfather. Geoff Leo peers into Haldeman's life for CBC News, sussing out what led the left-leaning farmer to believe that an "invisible government" was operating in every country, controlling "the banks, the media, and the universities and ... aiming to run the world," all in the service of the "International Conspiracy." This murky entity was also supposedly trying to add fluoride to drinking water and pushing mass vaccinations—and Haldeman "dedicated his life to fighting it." That battle paved the way for Haldeman's political activism, which led him straight to Technocracy, a movement insisting government should be run by engineers and scientists, not politicians.
When Technocracy was deemed a "subversive" group by the Canadian government, however, Haldeman also became less enamored, noting it had morphed into a "scientific Frankenstein" that was trying to take over Canada and Greenland. He eventually came to lead two political parties, positioning himself as "the Christian alternative to godless communists," per Leo, where he was accused of promoting antisemitism. Then, in the late '40s, Haldeman's "prophecies" spurred him to move his family, including daughter Maye, Musk's mother, to South Africa—where he embraced apartheid and started searching for the legendary city of the Kalahari, which he hoped would prove that ancient African civilizations had actually been built by whites. Haldeman died in a plane crash in 1974, at the age of 72, when grandson Elon was just 3. More here. (More Elon Musk stories.)
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