Elon Musk is a household name now, but his mom, Maye Musk, saw the spark in him long before the rest of the world.

Maye reminisced about Elon’s early years in a 2021 interview on CBS This Morning to promote her memoir A Woman Makes a Plan. The Tesla and SpaceX founder was constantly in the headlines for his success, but Maye wasn’t surprised. According to her, she had known since he was a toddler that Elon had a rare kind of mind.

“At 3, I knew he was a genius,” she said, quickly adding that it didn’t automatically mean he’d succeed. “You still don’t know if he’s going to do great things because many geniuses end up in a basement being a genius but not applying it.”

Picture it: a young Elon, just a few years old, with a mind that was already racing. But Maye, like any mother, had a practical side. Sure, she knew her son was special, but the thought crossed her mind – what if he ended up as a recluse, tinkering away in some basement? It’s a funny image now, considering that potential “basement genius” has morphed into a multibillionaire who, quite literally, aims for the stars.

Maye watched Elon’s mind start taking on big problems at an early age. “I was so excited when he started Zip2 because it just made life easier with door-to-door directions and then newspapers could have a link that took you to a restaurant,” she explained. That sounds routine now, but back then, Maye noted, “People didn’t believe that that’s possible and so that’s why I invested in that at the very beginning.” She saw what others couldn’t yet see – a digital world that Elon would help shape.

But Elon wasn’t the type to stop at one venture. According to Maye, it was almost like he couldn’t help himself. “And then, of course, he thought the banking system needed some help, so then he did PayPal,” she said.

It’s classic Elon – spotting inefficiencies and jumping in to solve them. She even tried to rein him in a little when he started eyeing even bigger ambitions: “I said just choose one and of course, he didn’t listen to me.” And thank goodness he didn’t. Where would we be if Elon Musk had picked just one? No electric cars, no private rockets, no flamethrowers, for that matter.

Fast-forward to now and Elon’s relentless ambition hasn’t just made him successful; it’s made him the richest person on the planet. With a net worth of $263 billion, he’s crossed financial milestones in almost incomprehensible ways. In October alone, his wealth reportedly surged by $34 billion in a single day due to a spike in Tesla’s stock – a figure most people can’t imagine.

Maye’s early fears of a basement-bound genius were more than unfounded; they now feel almost comical. Instead of hiding away, Elon Musk transformed his genius into groundbreaking companies that have changed entire industries.

Her pride is clear and her reflections capture a sense of wonder and humor that only a mother can have. She knew Elon was different from Day One – but even she couldn’t have predicted just how far he’d go by simply refusing to “pick just one.”