South Africa has not produced a thriving industrial or technological sector, though there have been individual advances in certain areas, notably medicine (heart transplants, yellow fever vaccine), and Mark Shuttleworth's Thawte, which left the country.

Musk would have been 23 at the time of the election of Nelson Mandella. Musk's youth certainly was under an Apartheid regime and would reflect the benefits of being a white male under that system. He'd already left for Canada some five years earlier, which might itself speak to your parent's observations.