The business aspect of Patrice Motsepe’s life is the golden thread. He grins when he talks about the "family enterprises – they made me what I am".
Involved in rebuilding the old shopping centre that the Motsepes once owned and ran in his home village of Mmakau in North West, he reflects on the people there who "always have the passion to try and make a difference".
"We have to create circumstances of hope and aspiration. I have been so privileged, immensely privileged. My father taught me that I should never stop working."
He goes back to those childhood pictures.
"You know, I once came home from boarding school – I think I was seven or eight – and I said to 'Daddy, the children at school, most of my friends, get taken on holiday'."
The Motsepe children had never been on holiday – when the other kids got the weekends off, the Motsepes were "standing behind the counter".
His father occupies "a very big space", Motsepe says, and it’s an opinion echoed by many leaders of the previous generation who hold ABC (ABC Motsepe football League) in the highest esteem.
An example is former president Kgalema Motlanthe, who has spoken about the impact ABC had on him as an educator and an entrepreneur who never gave up.
"I had a beautiful unfair advantage," says Motsepe, "because, I’ll tell you, [my father] taught me things at a young age that [matter, such as] always be part of the community. At times my school fees weren’t paid and [yet he] would pay the fees of the students in the community. It was everything to him that people were educated."
It’s a tradition Motsepe has carried on in his own life, with the Motsepe Foundation paying for thousands of students to attend university.
"When you are young, you don’t understand it, and you [could] go through life and believe it’s all about yourself. But you realise that’s not correct, and you grow. If your community and your country doesn’t grow, you’re also retreating.
"It’s so wonderful to listen [to other people]. We get inspired as well as people getting inspired by us. There’s so many good people who say they will not give up on their country, and have that very real objective to build."
Motsepe sees SA as a pivot on the continent. This is not so much a default as his unwavering belief. He doesn’t despise people who emigrate, but he’s confused about their inability to see the "gifts" so evident in the country.
"[We have] to tell each other, this is not like any other country in Africa. We’ve got a real possibility at the moment to bring about generational multicultural and multilingual change, and these are in fact large things, but because they are somehow so difficult to put across, they [can feel like] small things."
Enlivened by this will to "South Africanise", Motsepe opens this out to the role the country has to play in the race against the climate crisis. "Bill Gates calls me and says, 'Listen, we’re putting this Breakthrough Energy [grouping] together', and before he knows it, [ I told him] 'I’m going to the COP21 in Paris', That buzzed his brain into all kinds of new arenas."
Gates, who drew Motsepe in as one of the world’s 28 high net worth individuals to be part of the initiative, identified Motsepe as an ally in the global south early on. Motsepe and his wife Precious Moloi-Motsepe were by that time already part of the billionaire’s Giving Pledge.
For that, says Motsepe, Gates called him and said, ‘We want a few families that will commit on a philanthropic basis,’ and since the Motsepe Foundation was already active, with the couple’s mindset tuned to contribute, Motsepe could agree to it immediately.
He often pays tribute to the everyday people who routinely deliver for their families and communities, against the odds, as compared to the macro-scope of being a signatory to the Giving Pledge.
"My message is, it doesn’t matter. The way that I actually see it, it doesn’t matter even if I give $100m, there’s an old lady who’s got a grant, she’s got R1,300 every month, and she gives some of her grants to her grandchildren or others, and because she does that for some time, she can’t even pay for meat, she can’t pay for vegetables. So those are the real heroes, because she makes a sacrifice. I give a big amount, but I’m still fine. My wife and children are still okay, you know. So those are the heroes we should celebrate."
Surprisingly, he seems star-struck when he talks about working closely with Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon in their ecological endeavours. The three men met in the 2010s. Motsepe and Damon – whose focus is on water – were on the same programme at the Philanthropic Roundtable of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation in Davos in 2014.
"When it comes to Leonardo, initially I thought that’s [just] Hollywood, but I was so impressed," he says, pointing out that DiCaprio has recently drawn attention to the critically endangered mountain gorillas in Rwanda. The Oscar winner also supports the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is facing unprecedented threats.
He talks about the "incredible experience" of seeing the gorillas, then adds, "But that is about wildlife, and [we’re also learning about how to get involved in protecting] life in the oceans, which is a good part of what they do."
The spotlight on the environmental damage from Motsepe’s mines will be unrelenting as he gains an increasingly larger space in energy provision in the future. He says he’s trying to face that head-on because "mines and many other industries [are big polluters]".
"Making sure that [we] know this target of [limiting warming to] 1.5°C must be at the heart’ of business," he says. "High standards should be set from the moment a business plan is drafted."
It’s encouraging that there are now "so many initiatives" to claw the planet back to sustain human life. But to Motsepe’s mind, "the ones that are doing the incredible work" can be found at the World Economic Forum.
He believes he benefits from being "part of that process", where the attention is on climate change and "how they are going to contribute" to maintaining standards around emissions.
It’s centred on excellence – the summit being the same for all, "to make the world a better place".
His thoughts turn to other billionaires who he believes are also giving this their best shot – like Johann Rupert, because "he’s with the heart and soul of Africa".
He won’t hear a bad word about Rupert. He even tilts his hat at Rupert’s father, Anton Rupert, despite the mangle of arguments against them.
This extract is from the new book Patrice Motsepe: An Appetite for Disruption by Janet Smith and Jonathan Ball Publishers.
