Maye Musk

Since our last cover, you have released the book A Woman Makes a Plan, can you tell us about your writing process? 

I was repeatedly asked by my literary agent to write a book because she had read articles about me in newspapers and magazines. She felt that I could give advice through my experiences. She wanted me to dictate my life story and have it transcribed. My children insisted I mention the struggles in my life. I did that, and wanted to remove these sad chapters, but the editor would not allow it. She said women would relate. They did. This needs to change. We should share our bad situations and ask for help.

When did you decide to write your book? How long was it in the making? 

I don’t remember the exact dates but it took about six months. I then worked with the editor to include and remove sections over several edits. I finished it around mid 2019. It was printed and launched December 31, 2019. 

There is a lot of self-reflection in your book but also life advice. Were you always planned to create it this way? 

I didn’t plan to talk about my life at all, rather experiences to inspire people and share positive messages. In the end, it was the adventure and hard times that were of most interest to readers.

Your modeling carrier flourished in the past several years. Can you tell us about your current fashion projects? 

Social media has definitely catapulted my modeling career. Now that I’m with CAA Fashion, my work is non-stop. I love it that way. Current fashion projects include Covergirl, Koda Robot Dog, a Ferragamo bag, and more that I’ve posted on social media. I also have many speaking engagements booked through CAA Speakers. I cannot share future fashion projects, but there are some fabulous ones. 

You signed to CAA Fashion in recent months, is there a possibility to see an option for your life as a feature film? 

I am asked about a feature film of my life every day. They would have to make an offer I can’t refuse for me to accept this request.

You are of the greatest producers yourself, all of your kids are well-accomplished and highly respected globally. Have you noticed special gifts in them while they were growing up? 

Yes I noticed special gifts in my children and they were so different. 

Tosca was always interested in movies. After twenty-five years in the movie industry, she now has her own platform, Passionflix, and makes romance movies with happy endings. Female actors are paid the same as male actors, and the directors are female. We need this. 

Kimbal has restaurants in cities where there is a need to serve fresh food from local farmers. They are slowly opening up. He also has his non-profit Big Green that built 650 vegetable and fruit gardens in underserved schools. Children planted, watered, picked and prepared their own produce. They also received math, science and nutrition classes in these Learning Gardens. Hopefully that will return soon too. In the meantime, the non-profit Million Gardens is giving away small containers with soil, seeds and instructions for apartments, hallways and gardens. 

Elon continues to promote sustainable energy and is happy other car companies are heading in that direction too. If this doesn’t work out, it looks like my whole family will be heading to Mars 🙂

Last weekend you appeared on SNL with your son Elon. It was quite a surprise for everyone! Can you tell us about your experience and watching Elon perform on SNL? 

My appearance was meant to be a surprise. I wasn’t allowed to announce it at all. The experience was amazing. I was very impressed with Elon‘s performances and all the different accents. Who knew?

Mike Ruiz and you are good friends for many years and shot a number of covers and editorials. Can you tell us what is like to work with him? 

Mike and I met on Instagram. I started following him because I liked his work. He then asked me to do a shoot in Los Angeles. When I arrived, I saw his fabulous hair and make up ideas, which were wild and gorgeous. He also directed me to do poses, which were very different. At 65, I wasn’t used to doing creative shoots. Those kind of shoots were for young girls. I did catalogs, airlines, hotels, hair and makeup ads, which were lovely. Nothing dramatic. After posting Mike’s original photos, my Instagram account blew up. Since then, we’ve done many shoots. Every time I see my Instagram followers slowing down, I post a Mike Ruiz pic.  

He always asks you to do something unusual during the shoots, like climb a tree this time. Do you trust his vision? 

He always asks me to do something unusual, and sometimes terrifying. In a past shoot, I was standing on a wobbly stool in a field with the wind machine blowing on me to make the material fly. The effect was fabulous. For this shoot, he made me climb a tree in a huge ball gown. It took two men to hold a table and another man to help me up. Then they took the table away and I was gripping a stump on the tree while trying to turn around and look at the camera. It was really scary. I’m sure the end result will be amazing.

If you had a chance to give your younger self advice, what would that be? 

My advice to my younger self would be to get out of a bad situation quicker than I did. I always thought I could change people and make them nicer and kinder, but was not successful. That meant I went through a lot of pain and suffering. Now I don’t mix or work with mean people.