ELON Musk’s father has hit back at his estranged son, who last year branded him “evil”, describing the billionaire inventor as like a “spoilt child” who “needs to grow up”.

Speaking to The Mail on Sunday for a rare interview at his home in Pretoria, South Africa, 72-year-old Errol Musk broke his silence on the Elon’s now-infamous comments to Rolling Stone magazine, in which he said his father was “evil” and “a terrible human being”.

“Elon needs to grow up,” Errol said. “He needs to get over himself. I’m not going to hit back. I’m going to wait until he comes to his senses. He’s having a tantrum, like a spoilt child. He can’t have what he wants and now I am apparently an evil monster.”

Errol said his son made the comments when he was “emotionally fragile” following his breakup with Amber Heard, and was angry that his father had just had a baby with his much younger girlfriend.

The engineer, who briefly moved to the US following the PayPal inventor’s early success in Silicon Valley, also speculated that Elon took his father’s decision to move back to South Africa in 2004 as a personal insult, sparking their falling out.

“[That was] the first so-called terrible thing I did,” he said. “Elon is upset with me. He is furious that he can’t force me to love America the way he does. I refuse to live there. I tried it, and came back home.”

Last year, the 46-year-old Tesla and SpaceX founder slammed his father and painted a picture of a lonely, painful upbringing.

“He was such a terrible human being. You have no idea,” he told Rolling Stone, voice trembling, tears running down his face. “My dad will have a carefully thought-out plan of evil. He will plan evil.”

But Musk would not go into specifics. “You have no idea about how bad. Almost every crime you can possibly think of, he has done. Almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done ... It’s so terrible, you can’t believe it.”

But he said his father was “not physically violent with me, he was only physically violent when I was very young”. At the time Errol also told the publication via email that he had only ever “smacked” Elon once “on the bottom”.

He also said he had never threatened or hurt anyone or been charged with a crime — except when he shot and killed three our of five or six armed intruders who broke into his home. Errol was later acquitted after pleading self-defence.

“I was at home with my daughter Rosie, and the breaking of glass woke us up. I did what I had to do and we somehow escaped unhurt,” Errol told The Mail, in an interview published at the weekend.

“That’s the only so-called terrible thing I’ve ever had to do. Maybe that’s what Elon is referring to. I’m not an evil person. I have nothing to regret. I’m just a father who loves his son — and all his children — and is happy to know they are safe and healthy and secure.”

Errol, who was a millionaire before the age of 30, rejected Elon’s claims about his childhood, saying he and his first wife Maye brought up their three children, Elon, Kimbal and Tosca, in luxury.

“I drove them to school in a convertible Rolls-Royce Corniche, they had thoroughbred horses to ride and motorbikes at the age of 14,” he said. “They were spoilt, I suppose. Maybe that’s why Elon is acting like a spoilt child now.”

He described Elon’s fury at his decision to move back to South Africa as “tantrum number one”. Tantrum number two was the pregnancy.

“I got my 30-year-old girlfriend Jana pregnant and we had a baby son, who is now 10 months old,” he said. “Of course, I love him dearly, even though it wasn’t planned. In my own cautious way I insisted on a DNA test to ensure he was mine.

“I told my daughter Ali about him because I thought she would be supportive and understanding. She said I was insane, mentally ill. She told the others and they went berserk.

“They think I’m getting senile and should go into an old age home, not have a life full of fun and a tiny baby.

“I think Elon was emotionally fragile when he attacked me. His girlfriend Amber Heard had dropped him and I believe he was crying for himself over the heartbreak.

“He describes me as terrible. But there are many things he doesn’t know — the work I did to lessen the effects of apartheid for so many years.

“I’d rather be in my home country, South Africa, with all its violent crime than live in the budgie cage of America.”

frank.chung@news.com.au