Maya Musk stayed in front of the camera at 74, appearing on the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover in 2022 while continuing a modeling career that began in Pretoria after her family moved there when she was seven years old. Her profile matters because it puts age, visibility, and commercial longevity in the same frame.
Maye Musk is Elon Musk's mother, and her public image now sits on top of a long professional run that also includes work as CoverGirl's oldest spokesperson and an appearance in one of Beyoncé's music videos in 2013. She has spoken against ageism, and the fact pattern here is simple: she is still being booked, still being seen, and still selling the idea that a model can remain marketable well past the age most fashion campaigns write people off.
1970 to 2022
Maye Musk married Errol Musk in 1970, split from him in 1979, and later described the relationship as one marked by constant physical and emotional abuse. In a 2019 Harper's Bazaar interview, she said, "He was very rich, but he made sure I had nothing," a line that turns her career into more than a glamour story; it is also a record of rebuilding after control and financial strain.
She wrote in her 2019 book A Woman Makes a Plan: Advice for a Lifetime of Adventure, Beauty, and Success that she raised her children to be independent, kind, honest, considerate, polite, hardworking, and good. She added, "I never told them what to study. They just let me know what they were studying or didn't. I didn't check their homework; that was their responsibility. It certainly hasn't hurt their careers. I think my siblings and I benefited, and my children benefited from taking responsibility early on."
Beyoncé, CoverGirl, ageism
2013 matters because it shows the range of Musk's late-career visibility: she appeared in one of Beyoncé's music videos, then moved on to a 2019 book and a 2022 magazine cover at 74. That sequence is not a one-off publicity burst; it is sustained presence across fashion, publishing, and music, which is how older talent keeps working when the market usually narrows.
As a business proposition, that longevity gives her a sharper edge than nostalgia. Ageism narrows who gets seen, but Musk's cover, spokesperson role, and music-video credit show that older models can still occupy high-visibility commercial space when the name, image, and story travel together.
Elon Musk family
Maye Musk's family connection also keeps her in circulation, with Elon Musk, Tosca Musk, and Kimbal all part of the same public story. Tosca later founded Passionflix, said it creates content primarily for romance lovers, and described how she first told Elon she was having twins Isabeau and Grayson after IVF treatment in 2013, a family thread that links entrepreneurship to the same household image Musk has built around independence.
What stands out is not a single cover but the way she still converts age into visibility. The open question is what specific work she is doing now, but the market signal is already clear: at 74, she remains bookable, quotable, and useful in a business that usually moves on faster than she did.
