Tech billionaire Elon Musk's mother has opened up about her marriage to his estranged father Errol, who has fathered a child with his own stepdaughter.

Speaking to Stella magazine, the 70-year-old model alluded to her rocky nine-year marriage to her high school sweetheart, now 72, with whom she shares three children.

'I have been messed around a lot,' she said. 'But that was me trying to change someone, trying to make them a nicer person and I know now that that doesn't work.'

The South African born model admitted that while she was struggling to make her marriage work and raising three young children, she turned to food for comfort.

'Things weren't going well, I was unhappy and I began to eat everything in sight.'

Tesla Motors chief Elon previously branded his father 'a terrible human being'and said he'd 'almost every evil thing you can possibly think of'.

Last month, it emerged that Errol shares a child with his stepdaughter Jana Bezuidenhout, 30, who was four when he married her mother.

In a sensational interview with MailOnline, Errol said he could 'barely remember Jana's mother Heide, despite the couple being married for 18 years and having two children together.

Maye Musk has opened up about her difficult marriage to her son Elon's father, saying she was 'messed around' while trying to make her ex-husband a better person

Errol Musk, 72, has fathered a son with his stepdaughter, who he raised from the age of four

'I got my 30-year-old girlfriend Jana pregnant and we had a baby, who is now ten months old,' he admitted.

'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. '

Referring to his daughter Ali - Jana's half sister - he said: 'I told her 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.’

Errol Musk, 72, father of the Tesla Motors chief, has a 10-month-old baby boy called Elliot Rush Musk with his stepdaughter Jana Bezuidenhout, 30 (pictured)

He later claimed that the child had been conceived as the result of a 'one off mistake' when Jana had split up with her boyfriend and turned to him for comfort

'I do not want to call it a mistake because no child wants to hear that they were a mistake,' he told Rapport newspaper.

'It happened one evening when Jana's boyfriend threw her out of the house and she had slept over at my house. You have to understand – I've been single for 20 years and I'm just a man who makes mistakes.'

He said Jana and their son now lived on the same property as him, in Langebaan, an hour outside Cape Town, but they are not in a relationship.

Ageless beauty Maye on the catwalk. She admitted she couldn't stop comfort eating as her marriage fell apart

Elon has reportedly not spoken to his father for 18 months after discovering he had fathered a child with Jana.

Maye was married to Errol from 1970 to 1979, during which time they had Elon, his brother Kimbal and a daughter Tosca.

Errol then met Heide, who had been left widowed with three young children, including Jana, after her first husband had died in a car crash.

He took on the children as his own and was said to be the only father figure Jana had ever known.

Errol and Heide went on to have two children together Alexandra 'Ali' Musk and Asha 'Rose' Musk.