SARAJEVO (Reuters) -South African businessman Errol Musk, the father of billionaire Elon Musk, visited Bosnia this week to assess its potential as a location for a research institute on gravity, space-time and longevity, months after saying he planned to base it in Dubai.
The elder Musk, a 79-year-old engineer who is estranged from his son, was quoted by Bosnia’s Klix news portal as saying he had been offered a location in the United Arab Emirates but was advised to try the Balkans by a friend there originally from the region.
“I have to say that I am pleasantly surprised by what I found. The economy, the availability of things, the behavior of people. I spent a few days here and thought – this is idyllic,” the news portal quoted the South African businessman as saying.
“My initial idea was that the UAE was ideal, but now that I’ve seen this … I’d say this is much better.”
The Chamber of Commerce of Bosnia’s autonomous Bosniak-Croat Federation said it had highlighted the country’s educated workforce and economic potential in a presentation to Errol Musk on Wednesday.
He said he had not spoken to Bosnian government officials about what he said was a private initiative to investigate the “four realms of longevity, fusion, space-time and gravity”.
He feared any over-controlling governments and wanted to attract people who were not “already brainwashed and think that such things are not possible”, adding that he had also visited Austria and Serbia.
Bosnia, once part of Socialist Yugoslavia, consists of a Bosniak-Croat Federation and Serb Republic linked by weak state authorities. An international envoy oversees it to prevent a return to fighting between its Serbs, Croats and Muslims which tore it apart in 1992-5.
Errol Musk said he had not investigated Bosnia’s political system or discussed a potential investment there with his son, but would try to persuade him.
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(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
