Joshua N. Haldeman#Influence on Elon Musk

Haldeman was born in 1902 in Pequot Lakes, Minnesota, to father John Elon Haldeman, whose Mennonite ancestors had migrated to the US from the Swiss village of Signau in the 18th century to escape religious persecution, and mother Almeda Jane (Norman) Haldeman.{{Cite web |date=2022-04-30 |title=Aus diesem Schweizer Dorf stammt Tesla-Gründer Elon Musk |url=https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/aus-diesem-schweizer-dorf-stammt-tesla-gruender-elon-musk-719465997366 |access-date=2025-04-23 |website=Tages-Anzeiger |language=de}} He had a sister, also named Almeda.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-leader-post-marriage-of-teuion-hal/89935423/|title=Marriage of Teuion / Haldeman|newspaper=The Leader-Post |date=August 6, 1925|pages=6|via=newspapers.com}} When he was two years old, his father was diagnosed with diabetes; in an effort to treat her husband, his mother studied at E. W. Lynch's Chiropractic School in Minneapolis and earned her D.C. on January 20, 1905. The family then moved to Saskatchewan, where she became the first recorded chiropractor in Canada.{{Cite web|url=https://www.palmer.edu/palmer-blog/chiropractic-advocates/|title=Chiropractic Advocates|first=Sarah|last=Tisinger|date=September 16, 2020|website= palmer.edu | publisher= Palmer College of Chiropractic}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/quad-city-times-5000-here-for-graduatio/149429234/|title=5,000 here for graduation of P.S.C. Seniors|newspaper= Quad-City Times |date=June 22, 1923 |page=17|via=newspapers.com}}

John Haldeman died in 1909. Almeda Haldeman remarried to Heseltine Wilson. Joshua Haldeman was reared on Wilson's ranch.

Haldeman attended a number of colleges and universities, including Moose Jaw College, Regina College, Manitoba Agricultural College, and the University of Chicago. He graduated in 1926 from B. J. Palmer's Palmer School of Chiropractic in Iowa. Haldeman remained a friend of Palmer and a user of the neurocalometer, a device which Palmer leased to practitioners.

After a short time practicing as a chiropractor, Haldeman concentrated on farming, but the Great Depression led to his losing the farm in the mid-1930s. Thereafter, he worked in a variety of jobs including as a cowboy and a rodeo performer, then resumed a career as a chiropractor.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-leader-post-250-take-part-in-y-dis/149430194/|title=250 Take Part in 'Y' Display|newspaper=The Leader-Post |date=April 30, 1938|pages=3|via=newspapers.com}}

Haldeman represented Saskatchewan at the founding of the Dominion Council of Canadian Chiropractors (later the Canadian Chiropractic Association) and was elected provincial representative in 1943.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-leader-post-chiropractors-elect-offi/149429836/|title=Chiropractors Elect Officers|newspaper=The Leader-Post |date=March 1, 1943|page=3|via= newspapers.com}} He was a founder member of the board of the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College. In 1947, he was elected vice president of the DCCC, and from 1948 to 1950 he was its appointed representative to the board of control of the International Chiropractors Association.

From 1936 to 1941, he was involved in Howard Scott's Technocracy Incorporated,{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-glasgow-courier-week-end-visitor/149429998/|title=Week End Visitor|newspaper=The Glasgow Courier |date=June 29, 1939|pages=5|via=newspapers.com}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-leader-post-technocrats-dine/149430129/|title=Technocrats Dine|newspaper=The Leader-Post |date=October 31, 1938|pages=14|via=newspapers.com}} which led to his arrest under the wartime Defence of Canada Regulations on October 8, 1940, in Vancouver by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on a charge of membership in an illegal organization.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-leader-post-police-hold-technocrat-h/101818960/|title=Police Hold Technocrat Haldeman|newspaper=The Leader-Post |date=October 8, 1940|page=16|via=newspapers.com}} Technocracy Incorporated had been banned in Canada following the start of World War II since the organization was deemed subversive to the war effort.{{Cite news|last=Basen|first=Ira|url=https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/technocracy-incorporated-elon-musk/|title=In science we trust|newspaper= CBC News|date=June 28, 2021|access-date=January 5, 2025}} He was returned to Regina and released on $8,000 bail;{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/star-phoenix-chiropractor-faces-court/149430296/|title=Chiropractor Faces Court|newspaper=Star-Phoenix |date=October 12, 1940|pages=3|via=newspapers.com}} at trial, he was fined $200 for his role "writing, publishing, or circulating" a document titled "Statement of Patriotism by Those Who Were Technocrats", which the court deemed likely to cause "disaffection to His Majesty".{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-leader-post/131848294/|title=Dr. J.N. Haldeman Fined by Court|newspaper=The Leader-Post |date=October 23, 1940|page=2|via=newspapers.com}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-edmonton-bulletin-statement-of-patri/149432466/|title=Statement of Patriotism by Those Who Were Technocrats|newspaper=The Edmonton Bulletin |date=July 13, 1940|page=11|via=newspapers.com}}

In 1941, he resigned from that group and for two years attempted to form his own political party, publishing a newsletter titled Total War & Defence. As an avowed anti-communist, Haldeman objected to Technocracy Incorporated's declaration of support for the Soviet Union following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Haldeman's son-in-law Errol Musk claimed in 2024 that Haldeman sympathized with Nazi Germany during World War II.{{cite podcast |host=Macgyver Mukwevho |date= November 14, 2024 |title=EPISODE 613: ERROL MUSK On Growing Up in SA, Elon Musk,Donald Trump,Dating Step Daughter,Ex Wife |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH1U5x8LXgs |work=Podcast and Chill with MacG |publisher=Podcast and Chill Network |time=52:45|access-date=January 5, 2025}}

In 1943, Haldeman joined the Social Credit Party of Canada and served as the Social Credit Party of Saskatchewan's leader,{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-leader-post-official-explanation/149429811/|title='Official' explanation|newspaper=The Leader-Post |date=January 25, 1947|page=3|via=newspapers.com}} but failed to be elected in the constituency of Yorkton in the 1948 Saskatchewan general election.{{cite news |title=CCF Government Wins Again in Saskatchewan |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-ottawa-citizen/131831339/ |access-date=October 8, 2024 |work=Ottawa Citizen |issue=June 25, 1948}}

During that time, Haldeman formally made statements discouraging the publicizing of the prevalent antisemitism in the party.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KBvReeYEArMC&pg=PA171|title=Social Discredit: Anti-Semitism, Social Credit, and the Jewish Response|first=Janine|last=Stingel|year=2000|publisher=McGill-Queen's Press |isbn=978-0-7735-6819-8 |page=171 }} However, he also gave a speech defending a decision by a party newspaper to publish the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an antisemitic fabrication claiming an International Jewish conspiracy to rule the world. In his speech, Haldeman said "that the plan as outlined in these protocols has been rapidly unfolding in the period of observation of this generation." He would later claim that apartheid South Africa was leading "White Christian Civilization" against the "International Conspiracy" of Jewish bankers and the "hordes of Coloured people" he claimed they controlled.

In the 1945 Canadian federal election, he made a bid for a seat in the federal parliament, placing fourth in Prince Albert with 4.3% of the vote, losing to Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. In 1946, he cited the party's opposition to communism in the press.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-leader-post-social-credit-ready-to-f/149430714/|title=Social Credit ready to fight Communism|newspaper=The Leader-Post |date=February 25, 1946|pages=3|via=newspapers.com}} In the 1949 Canadian federal election he ran in Lake Centre losing to future prime minister John Diefenbaker.

He was chairman of the party's national council until 1949, when he resigned.

In 1950, he emigrated with his family to South Africa and settled in the capital Pretoria, where he opened a chiropractic clinic.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-leader-post-a-new-life-for-haldeman/101817586/|title=A new life for Haldeman|newspaper=The Leader-Post |date=August 6, 1951|page=11|via=newspapers.com}} He served as secretary of the South African Chiropractors Association from 1952 to 1959, after which he was its president until 1969.

Haldeman's move to South Africa was motivated by support for apartheid, and he was a supporter of the ruling National Party of South Africa. He told Afrikaner nationalist Die Transvaler, an extremist newspaper that was described as "a tool of the Nazis in South Africa" by a South African judge: "Instead of the Government's attitude keeping me out of South Africa, it had precisely the opposite effect—it encouraged me to come and settle here."

In 1951, he wrote an article about South Africa for the Saskatchewan newspaper, the Regina Leader-Post, defending apartheid and writing of Black South Africans: "The natives are very primitive and must not be taken seriously... Some are quite clever in a routine job, but the best of them cannot assume responsibility and will abuse authority. The present government of South Africa knows how to handle the native question."

Weeks after the Sharpeville massacre on 21 March 1960, Haldeman self-published The International Conspiracy to Establish a World Dictatorship and the Menace to South Africa, a 42-page response to the massacre. The United Nations passed Resolution 134, the body’s first official condemnation of apartheid and the beginning of decades of diplomatic isolation. Later Haldeman self-published a second book alleging international conspiracies: The International Conspiracy in Health targeted fluoridation, vaccinations, and health insurance.{{Cite magazine |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/09/joshua-haldeman-elon-musk-grandfather-apartheid-antisemitism/675396/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231007124423/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/09/joshua-haldeman-elon-musk-grandfather-apartheid-antisemitism/675396/ |archive-date=October 7, 2023 |title=Elon Musk's Anti-Semitic, Apartheid-Loving Grandfather |first=Joshua |last=Benton |author-link=Joshua Benton |date=September 21, 2023 |magazine=The Atlantic}}{{Cite magazine |url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-world-according-to-elon-musks-grandfather |title=The World According to Elon Musk's Grandfather: What happened to antisemitic rants before social media |first=Jill |last=Lepore |author-link=Jill Lepore |date=September 19, 2023 |magazine=The New Yorker}}

Errol Musk said of his wife's family: "They were very fanatical in favor of apartheid... [Maye's] parents came to South Africa from Canada because they sympathised with the Afrikaner government. They used to support Hitler and all that sort of stuff."{{cite web |last1=McGreal |first1=Chris |title=How the roots of the ‘PayPal mafia’ extend to apartheid South Africa |url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/26/elon-musk-peter-thiel-apartheid-south-africa |website=theguardian.com |publisher=The Guardian |access-date=28 January 2025}}

Haldeman married Eve Peters in 1934. Their first child, Joshua Jerry Noel Haldeman, was born the same year. The couple divorced by 1937.{{cite news |last1=Leo |first1=Geoff |title=The Canadian roots of Elon Musk's conspiracist grandpa |url=https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/joshua-haldeman-elon-musk-saskatchewan-tech-utopian-conspiracist |access-date=March 21, 2025 |work=CBC News |date=March 20, 2025}} He remarried in 1942 to Winnifred Josephine Fletcher, a dance teacher, with whom he had 4 children, including twin daughters, Maye and Kaye, born in 1948. Through his daughter Maye, his grandson is billionaire businessman Elon Musk. Haldeman's technocratic ideas have allegedly influenced Elon Musk's views.{{cite web |last1=Sweet |first1=Matthew |title=Why Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk’s real business inspiration is science-fiction |url=https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/technology/article/why-jeff-bezos-and-elon-musks-real-business-inspiration-is-science-fiction-w805msw8t |website=thetimes.com |publisher=The Times of London |access-date=13 February 2025}}{{Cite web |last=Lepore |first=Jill |date=4 April 2025 |title=The Failed Ideas That Drive Elon Musk |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/opinion/elon-musk-doge-technocracy.html |access-date=4 April 2025 |website=New York Times}}

To facilitate travel between his home and practice in Regina and his various other commitments, including the ICA in Davenport, Iowa, Haldeman took flying lessons, earning his pilot's license in 1948 and buying a single-engine plane.{{Cite web |first=Joseph Jr. |last=Keating|url=https://dynamicchiropractic.com/article/46050-flying-chiros-part-ii-of-ii|title=Flying Chiros, Part II |website=Dynamic Chiropractic |date=January 2004 |access-date=July 2, 2024 }}{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-leader-post-flying-own-plane-said-be/149430885/|title=Flying own plane said best method|newspaper=The Leader-Post |date=May 31, 1950|pages=3|via=newspapers.com}} He and his second wife became known as flying enthusiasts, toured North America, and in the mid-1950s co-wrote a book titled The Flying Haldemans: Pity the Poor Private Pilots.

The Haldemans continued to fly extensively after moving to South Africa. In 1954, they flew some 30,000 miles to Australia and back via Asia, possibly the longest journey by a private pilot in a single-engine plane. Beginning in 1953, they also undertook a dozen expeditions in search of the "Lost City of the Kalahari".{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SnMNAQAAIAAJ|title=The Kalahari and Its Lost City|first=A. John|last=Clement|year=1967|publisher=Longmans}} Haldeman co-founded the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association of South Africa and served as a representative on the Civil Aviation Advisory Council and the Air Navigation Regulations Committee of South Africa. In 1956, he also tied for first place in the third edition of the trans-Africa Algiers-Cape Town Rally, driving a Ford Ranch-Wagon 5.4L.{{cite news|url=http://hemeroteca.lavanguardia.com/preview/1956/03/24/pagina-25/32770693/pdf.html |title=Ha terminado el III rallye Automoviliticos El Cabo - Argel |work=La Vanguardia |date=March 25, 1956 |page=25 |language=es}}

On January 13, 1974, he and a passenger were killed when his plane's wheels caught in a powerline during a practice landing in his plane.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/edmonton-journal-activism-and-escapades/149489052/|title=Activism and Escapades|newspaper=Edmonton Journal |date=May 13, 2017|page=17|via=newspapers.com}}{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BDinDwAAQBAJ |title=A Woman Makes a Plan: Advice for a Lifetime of Adventure, Beauty, and Success |isbn=978-1-9848-7851-9 |last=Musk |first=Maye |author-link=Maye Musk |date=31 December 2019 |publisher=Penguin}}

According to Jill Lepore, professor of history at Harvard University, many of Musk's ideas about politics, governance and economics resemble those of his grandfather Joshua Haldeman. She noted the similarity between Musk's involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency and Technocracy's proposal to eliminate most government services, including "90 percent of courts", and for what remains to be made "much more efficient". She said that Musk's popularization of the phrase "woke mind virus" echoes Haldeman's belief that "intensive mass mind conditioning" was being used by newspapers, media and university professors to spread ideas of equality of races and opposition to apartheid.{{Cite news |last=Lepore |first=Jill |date=2025-04-04 |title=The Failed Ideas That Drive Elon Musk |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/opinion/elon-musk-doge-technocracy.html |archive-url=https://archive.today/2025.04.17-032917/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/opinion/elon-musk-doge-technocracy.html |archive-date=2025-04-17 |access-date=2025-05-16 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}

Soledad Gallego-Díaz agreed with Lepore's analysis, adding that while Musk appears not to hold democracy "in high regard" (recalling Musk's alleged Nazi salute), the Technocracy movement described liberal democracy as a "failed" system. Lepore notes that Technocracy called to "dispense with" popular elections, and rejected, in their words, "the basic tenet of the democratic ideal, namely that all men are created free and equal".

Some commentators have noted a similarity between the name of Musk's first child with Grimes, X Æ A-12, and the numbers that Technocracy members were required to adopt in place of names (such as 1x1809x56, or Haldeman's number, 10450-1).{{Cite web |last=Gallego-Díaz |first=Soledad |date=2025-04-20 |title=Elon Musk’s less than original measures: Developing the ideas of his grandfather, Joshua Haldeman |url=https://english.elpais.com/opinion/2025-04-20/elon-musks-less-than-original-measures-developing-the-ideas-of-his-grandfather-joshua-haldeman.html |access-date=2025-05-16 |website=EL PAÍS English |language=en-us}}{{Cite web |last=Getahun |first=Hannah |title=Elon Musk's grandfather belonged to a political party that believed the world should be governed by technology. Newspapers at the time described it as having 'the tone of an incipient Fascist movement.' |url=https://www.businessinsider.com/who-was-elon-musk-grandfather-joshua-haldeman-technocracy-incorporated-party-2023-9 |access-date=2025-05-16 |website=Business Insider |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |title=Elon Musks fragwürdige Vordenker: Dr. Haldeman und Technocracy Inc. |url=https://www.derstandard.de/consent/tcf/story/3000000263400/elon-musks-fragwuerdige-vordenker-dr-haldeman-und-technocracy-inc |access-date=2025-05-16 |website=DER STANDARD |language=de-AT}} A contemporary article in The Buffalo News said that these numbers, along with the uniforms worn by members and salutes they greeted each other with, "give [Technocracy] the tone of an incipient fascist movement".{{Cite news |date=1942-03-18 |title=Article clipped from The Buffalo News |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-buffalo-news/131851079/ |access-date=2025-05-16 |work=The Buffalo News |pages=37}}

{{Canadian election result/top|CA|1949|Lake Centre}}

{{CANelec|CA|PC|John Diefenbaker |8,845}}

{{CANelec|CA|CCF|Delmar Valleau |5,413}}

{{CANelec|CA|Liberal|Donald Arthur MacRae|3,061}}

{{CANelec|CA|Social Credit|Joshua Haldeman | 856}}

{{end}}

{{Election box begin | title=1948 Saskatchewan general election,

Yorkton electoral district}}

|-

{{Canadian party colour|SK|CCF|row}}

| style="width: 130px" |CCF

|Arthur Percy Swallow

|align="right"|3,795

|align="right"|42.91

|align="right"|–

{{Canadian party colour|SK|Liberal|row}}

|Liberal

|Andrew M. Kindred

|align="right"|3,256

|align="right"|36.82

|align="right"|–

{{CANelec|SK|Social Credit|Joshua N. Haldeman|1,792|20.26|–}}

|- bgcolor="white"

!align="left" colspan=3|Total

!align="right"|8,843

!align="right"|100.00

!align="right"|

{{election box end}}

{{1945 Canadian federal election/Prince Albert}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Haldeman, Joshua N.}}

{{reflist}}

{{Elon Musk|state=collapsed}}

Category:1902 births

Category:1974 deaths

Category:Canadian chiropractors

Category:South African chiropractors

Category:Canadian social crediters

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Category:Social Credit Party of Canada candidates in the 1945 Canadian federal election

Category:Technocracy movement

Category:Musk family

Category:Canadian anti-communists

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Category:Palmer College of Chiropractic alumni

Category:South African anti-communists

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Category:South African conspiracy theorists

Category:Saskatchewan candidates for Member of Parliament

Category:South African white supremacists

Category:People convicted of sedition

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Category:Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 1974