Everyone knows Maye Musk. She’s the 70-something supermodel, the dietitian with two master’s degrees, and, yeah, the woman who raised the richest person on the planet. But there’s a piece of the puzzle most people completely miss. Maye has a twin. Her name is Kaye Rive (formerly Kaye Haldeman), and honestly, her life is just as wild as the rest of the Musk-Haldeman clan.
You’ve probably seen the photos of Maye on the cover of Sports Illustrated or walking the runway in Milan. Behind that spotlight is a lifelong bond with a sister who shared the same eccentric, desert-wandering childhood. They weren’t just sisters; they were business partners before they were even teenagers.
The Twins Who Ran a Business at Age 12
Most kids are playing with dolls or bikes at twelve. Maye and Kaye? They were working the front desk. Their father, Joshua Haldeman, was a chiropractor and a bit of a local celebrity in Pretoria, South Africa. He ran a massive practice and published a monthly newsletter that went out to thousands.
The twins were his staff.
They’d spend hours after school licking stamps, stuffing envelopes, and answering the phones. It sounds kinda intense for a middle-schooler, but that’s just how the Haldemans rolled. Their parents didn't believe in "leisure time" the way we do now. If you weren't exploring the Kalahari Desert in a propeller plane—which they actually did, by the way—you were working.
This environment basically hard-wired them for entrepreneurship. While Maye went into dietetics and modeling, Kaye built her own path, eventually raising a crop of kids who would go on to change the tech world themselves.
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Maye Musk Twin Sister Kaye: Raising the SolarCity Founders
If you think Elon is the only "disruptor" in the family, you haven't looked at Kaye’s kids. Kaye is the mother of Lyndon and Peter Rive.
Does that name ring a bell? It should.
Lyndon and Peter are the guys who started SolarCity. They eventually sold it to Tesla for billions. Kaye didn't just raise "average" kids; she raised the architects of the residential solar boom in America. It's wild to think that one set of twin sisters produced the people behind SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity. There’s definitely something in the genes—or at least in the way they were raised.
Kaye and Maye actually had a double wedding. They got married at the same time, though their paths diverged later as Maye dealt with a famously difficult and abusive marriage to Errol Musk. Through those years of struggle, Kaye remained a constant.
Why You Don't See Kaye in the Tabloids
It's a fair question. If your nephew is the most famous man on Earth, why aren't you on TMZ?
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Honestly, Kaye seems to prefer the "stealth wealth" or at least "stealth success" lifestyle. While Maye thrives in front of a camera—she’s been modeling since 15 and shows no signs of stopping at 77—Kaye has mostly stayed out of the influencer circuit. She’s present at family gatherings and the occasional high-profile event, but she isn't chasing the CoverGirl contracts.
She lives in South Africa for much of her life, though the family is spread across the globe now. The bond between them is still incredibly tight. Maye often posts throwback photos of the two of them as kids in Canada before the big move to Africa. They look identical in those grainy 1950s shots, usually wearing matching outfits their mother, Wyn, probably picked out.
The Kalahari Connection
You can't understand Kaye without understanding their upbringing. Their parents were adventurers who took the kids into the desert every year for a month.
They were looking for the "Lost City of the Kalahari."
They had a truck, some water, and a compass. No GPS. No cell phones. Just a map and a dream. Kaye and Maye spent their formative years sleeping under the stars and avoiding lions. When you grow up like that, the "risks" of starting a multi-billion dollar company probably feel pretty small.
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Kaye has been described by family members as the "grounded" one, though in a family this high-achieving, "grounded" is a relative term. She’s been a constant support system for Maye, especially when Maye moved back to Canada in her 40s with nothing and had to work five jobs to keep her kids fed.
Real Talk: Is Kaye "Famous" or Just "Related"?
Look, if we’re being real, Kaye isn't a household name. But in the world of venture capital and tech history, her branch of the family tree is legendary.
- Maye's kids: Elon (Tesla/SpaceX), Kimbal (The Kitchen/Big Green), Tosca (Passionflix).
- Kaye's kids: Lyndon and Peter (SolarCity), Russ (SuperViz/SuperUber).
It's a 100% success rate.
What's fascinating is that the sisters didn't raise their kids in luxury. Both families experienced the "struggle years." Maye famously lived in a rent-controlled apartment in Toronto where they didn't even have chairs at first. Kaye’s kids also had to hustle. That shared history of "work hard or don't eat" is what defines the relationship between the two sisters today.
Actionable Takeaways from the Haldeman Twins
If there’s anything to learn from the story of Maye and her twin Kaye, it’s not about how to get lucky with a billionaire son. It’s about the "Haldeman Method."
- Work your kids early. Don't shield them from the family business. Let them see how the "sausage is made," whether that's stuffing envelopes or coding.
- Adventure is mandatory. Getting lost in a desert (literally or metaphorically) builds a type of resilience you can't get in a classroom.
- Loyalty matters. Despite the fame, the divorces, and the global moves, these two sisters have stayed a unit for nearly 80 years.
If you're looking for Kaye Rive on Instagram, you won't find the same polished feed Maye has. You'll find a woman who helped build the foundation for a tech empire from the shadows, content to let her twin sister take the center stage while she keeps the family legacy moving forward.
To dig deeper into this family's history, you should check out Maye’s memoir, A Woman Makes a Plan. It’s probably the best source for seeing how she and Kaye navigated their early years in South Africa before the world knew their names. You might also want to look into the early history of SolarCity to see how Kaye’s sons applied the "twin-taught" work ethic to the energy sector.