Elon Musk Biography
Elon Musk, born June 28, 1971, is a prominent South African-born American entrepreneur and businessman. The South African entrepreneur Elon Musk is known for founding Tesla Motors in 2003 and SpaceX in 2002 (which later became Paypal), which launched a landmark commercial spacecraft in 2012.
Wiki Profile
| Real Name: | Elon Musk |
| Date of Birth | June 28, 1971 |
| Place of Birth: | Pretoria, South Africa |
| Nationality: | American, Canadian, South African |
| Marital Status: | Divorced |
| Occupation: | Entrepreneur |
| Net Worth | $ 204.7 billion |
Early Life and Education
Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, on June 28, 1971. Musk was so engrossed in his daydreams about inventions as a child that his parents and doctors ordered a hearing test.
Musk developed an interest in computers around the time of his parents’ divorce, when he was 10 years old. He taught himself to program and sold his first piece of software, a game called Blastar, when he was 12 years old.
Musk was short, introverted, and bookish in elementary school. He was bullied until he was 15, when he went through a growth spurt and learned karate and wrestling to defend himself
Maye Musk, Elon Musk’s mother, is a Canadian model and the oldest woman to appear in a Covergirl campaign. Elon Musk mother used to work five jobs to support her family when she was younger.
Elon Musk’s father, Errol Musk, is a wealthy South African engineer.
Musk spent his early childhood in South Africa with his brother Kimbal and sister Tosca. His parents divorced when he was ten years old.
Musk moved to Canada in 1989, at the age of 17, to attend Queen’s University and avoid military service in South Africa.
Musk obtained Canadian citizenship that same year because he believed it would be easier to obtain American citizenship through that route.
Musk moved to the United States in 1992 to study business and physics at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned an undergraduate degree in economics before continuing on to earn a second bachelor’s degree in physics.
After leaving Penn, Musk went to Stanford University in California to pursue a PhD in energy physics, but due to the Internet’s rapid growth, he dropped out after only two days to join it, launching his first company, Zip2 Corporation, in 1995. Musk obtained US citizenship in 2002.
Career
In 1995, Musk and his brother, Kimbal Musk, founded Zip2 Corporation, which provided content for the new websites of The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune.
Zip2 was purchased by a division of Compaq Computer Corporation in 1999 for $307 million in cash and $34 million in stock options.
Elon and Kimbal Musk founded X.com, an online financial services and payments company, with the proceeds from the sale of Zip2. The following year, an X.com acquisition resulted in the formation of PayPal as it is known today.
Musk earned his first billion dollars in October 2002, when PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in stock. Musk owned 11% of PayPal stock prior to the sale.
Musk’s third company, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX, was founded in 2002 with the goal of developing spacecraft for commercial space travel.
By 2008, SpaceX had established itself, and NASA awarded the company the contract to handle cargo transport for the International Space Station—with future plans for astronaut transport—in an effort to replace NASA’s own space shuttle missions.
In late March 2018, SpaceX received permission from the U.S. government to launch a fleet of satellites into low orbit for the purpose of providing Internet service.
The satellite network, named Starlink, was to make broadband service more accessible in rural areas, while also boosting competition in heavily populated markets that are typically dominated by one or two providers.
In 2003, Musk co-founded Tesla Motors of which he is the CEO and product architect with the goal of producing affordable, mass-market electric cars, as well as battery products and solar roofs. Musk is in charge of the company’s product development, engineering, and design.
Tesla unveiled the Roadster, a sports car capable of accelerating from 0 to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds and traveling nearly 250 miles between charges of its lithium ion battery, five years after its formation, in March 2008.
Tesla Motors raised $226 million in its initial public offering in June 2010, with Daimler taking a stake in the company and a strategic partnership with Toyota.
In August 2008, Tesla announced plans for its Model S, the company’s first electric sedan designed to compete with the BMW 5 series.
The Model S finally went into production in 2012, with a starting price of $58,570. It was named the 2013 Car of the Year by Motor Trend magazine, and it can travel 265 miles between charges.
After Model S, other models like Model 3, Semi truck, Model Y and Roadster have been made.
In August 2016, Musk announced a $2.6 billion deal to combine his electric car and solar energy companies as part of his ongoing efforts to promote and advance sustainable energy and products for a broader consumer base.
Tesla Motors Inc. announced an all-stock acquisition of SolarCity Corp., a company Musk founded with his cousins in 2006. He owns a majority stake in each company.
Musk launched The Boring Company in January 2017, a company dedicated to boring and building tunnels to reduce street traffic. He began with a test dig on SpaceX’s Los Angeles property.
Elon is also the co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI
Elon Musk Net Worth
Elon Musk is a popular American, Canadian and South African billionaire entrepreneur with a net worth of $ 204.7 billion.
Personal Life
Wives and Children
Musk has had two marriages. In 2000, he married Justine Wilson, with whom he had six children. Their first son (Nevada Alexander Musk) died at the age of 10 weeks from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in 2002.
Musk and Wilson had five more sons: twins Griffin and Xavier (born in 2004), as well as triplets Kai, Saxon, and Damian (born in 2006).
Musk met actress Talulah Riley after a contentious divorce from Wilson. In 2010, the couple married. They divorced in 2012, but remarried in 2013. Their marriage eventually ended in divorce in 2016.
Girlfriends
Musk reportedly started dating actress Amber Heard in 2016 after his divorce from Riley and Heard’s divorce from Johnny Depp.
Due to their hectic schedules, the couple split in August 2017; they reconciled in January 2018 before splitting again one month later.
Musk began dating musician Grimes (Born Claire Boucher) in May 2018. That month, Grimes announced that she had changed her name to “C,” the symbol for the speed of light, allegedly at Musk’s encouragement.
Grimes gave birth to their son on May 4, 2020, and Musk announced the boy’s name as “X Æ A-12.” Later that month, after it was reported that the State of California would not accept a name with a number, the couple announced that their son’s name would be changed to “X Æ A-Xii.”
In December 2021, Musk and Grimes welcomed their second child, a daughter named Exa Dark Siderael Musk. The child was born through the use of a surrogate.
Social Media
- Instagram: @elonrmuskk
- Twitter: @elonmusk
