How the roots of the ‘PayPal mafia’ extend to apartheid South Africa

Elon Musk grew up with the privileges of a stratified racial order and Peter Thiel lived in a city that venerated Hitler

When Elon Musk’s arm shot out in a stiff arm salute at Donald Trump’s inaugural celebrations, startled viewers mostly drew the obvious comparison.

But in the fired-up debate about Musk’s intent that followed, as the world’s richest man insisted he wasn’t trying to be a Nazi, speculation inevitably focused on whether his roots in apartheid-era South Africa offered an insight.

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