Elon Musk

Elon Musk
Born	Elon Reeve Musk 28 6, 1971
Birthplace	Pretoria, South Africa
Nationality	South African, Canadian, American
Occupation	Template:Ubil
Known for	CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, owner of X
Education	University of Pennsylvania (BA, BS)
Spouse(s)	Template:Ubl
Children	14 (publicly known)

Elon Reeve Musk (born June 28, 1971) is a South African-born businessman, entrepreneur, and investor who serves as chief executive officer and chief engineer of SpaceX, chief executive officer and product architect of Tesla, and owner of the social media platform X (formerly Twitter). Born into a wealthy family in Pretoria, South Africa, Musk emigrated to Canada as a teenager and later moved to the United States, where he co-founded a series of technology companies that shaped the trajectories of online payments, electric vehicles, and commercial spaceflight. He co-founded the web software company Zip2 and the online financial services company X.com, the latter of which merged with a competitor to form PayPal. Musk subsequently founded SpaceX in 2002 and joined Tesla as an early investor in 2004, eventually becoming its CEO in 2008. His other ventures include the neurotechnology company Neuralink, the tunneling infrastructure company The Boring Company, and the artificial intelligence firm xAI. In 2022, Musk acquired Twitter and rebranded it as X the following year. He became the largest donor in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, supporting Donald Trump, and briefly served as Senior Advisor to the President and de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in early 2025 before departing the administration. As of early 2026, Forbes estimates his net worth at approximately US$852 billion, making him the wealthiest person in the world.

Early Life

Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa. His father, Errol Musk, is a South African electromechanical engineer, and his mother, Maye Musk, is a Canadian-born model and dietitian. Musk grew up in South Africa during the final decades of apartheid. His parents divorced when he was young, and he lived primarily with his father in Pretoria.

Musk developed an early interest in computing and technology. At the age of twelve, he created a video game called Blastar, a space-themed shooter, and sold the source code to a South African magazine called PC and Office Technology for approximately $500. The game involved destroying an alien freighter carrying weapons. This early foray into software development presaged Musk's later career in the technology industry.

Musk's mother held Canadian citizenship by birth, which provided him with a pathway out of South Africa. In 1989, at the age of seventeen, Musk emigrated to Canada. He obtained Canadian citizenship through his mother's nationality. Musk later described his departure from South Africa as partly motivated by a desire to avoid mandatory military service in the South African Defence Force, which at the time enforced apartheid-era policies, and partly by a desire to pursue opportunities in North America, which he perceived as the center of technological innovation.

After arriving in Canada, Musk attended Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania in the United States.

Education

Musk attended Queen's University in Ontario, Canada, for approximately two years before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. At Penn, he earned two bachelor's degrees: a Bachelor of Arts in physics and a Bachelor of Science in economics from the Wharton School, completing his studies in 1997.

Following his undergraduate education, Musk enrolled in a graduate program in energy physics at Stanford University in California. However, he left the program after only two days, choosing instead to pursue entrepreneurial ventures during the mid-1990s technology boom. During his time as a university student, Musk also completed internships that helped him refine his career interests in energy, technology, and the internet.

Career

Zip2 and X.com (1995–2002)

In 1995, Musk co-founded Zip2 Corporation, a web software company that provided business directories and maps for newspapers. The company contracted with major newspaper publishers including The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune to develop their online city guide products. In February 1999, Compaq acquired Zip2 for approximately $307 million in cash. Musk, who had a seven percent stake in the company, received $22 million from the sale.

Using the proceeds from the Zip2 acquisition, Musk co-founded X.com in 1999, an online financial services and payment company. X.com was one of the first federally insured online banks in the United States. In 2000, X.com merged with Confinity, a rival company that had developed a money-transfer service called PayPal. The merged entity focused on the PayPal product, and the company was eventually renamed PayPal. Musk served as CEO of the combined company for a period before being replaced. In October 2002, eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion in stock. Musk, as the company's largest shareholder, received approximately $165 million from the transaction.

Musk retained an attachment to the X.com domain name and repurchased it from PayPal in 2017. The domain would later become central to the rebranding of Twitter to X in 2023. Musk also became an American citizen in 2002.

SpaceX (2002–present)

In 2002, Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) with the stated goal of reducing space transportation costs and enabling the colonization of Mars. Musk invested approximately $100 million of his own fortune into the company and assumed the roles of CEO and chief engineer. SpaceX initially developed the Falcon 1 rocket, which experienced three consecutive launch failures between 2006 and 2008 before achieving a successful orbital flight on its fourth attempt in September 2008. This made Falcon 1 the first privately funded, liquid-fueled rocket to reach orbit.

SpaceX subsequently developed the Falcon 9 rocket, which became the company's primary launch vehicle, and the Falcon Heavy, a heavy-lift variant. A central innovation of the Falcon 9 program was the development of reusable first-stage boosters, which could return to a landing pad or drone ship after launch. SpaceX's reusable rocket technology reduced the cost of orbital launches and disrupted the commercial launch industry. The company also developed the Dragon spacecraft, which became the first commercial spacecraft to deliver cargo to the International Space Station (ISS), and later the Crew Dragon, which carried NASA astronauts to the ISS beginning in 2020.

SpaceX's Starship program, a fully reusable super heavy-lift launch system, represents the company's next-generation effort aimed at deep space exploration, including missions to Mars. The company has also developed Starlink, a satellite internet constellation intended to provide global broadband coverage, particularly in underserved and rural areas.

In 2026, xAI, Musk's artificial intelligence company, became a subsidiary of SpaceX. xAI's Grok model was also the subject of a deal with the U.S. Department of Defense for use in classified systems, as reported by Axios in February 2026.

Tesla (2004–present)

Musk became involved with Tesla Motors (now Tesla, Inc.) in 2004, participating in the company's Series A funding round and joining its board of directors as chairman. Tesla had been incorporated in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Musk contributed $6.5 million of the $7.5 million Series A round. In 2008, amid the global financial crisis, Musk became CEO of Tesla and its product architect.

Under Musk's leadership, Tesla launched a succession of electric vehicles beginning with the Roadster in 2008, followed by the Model S sedan in 2012, the Model X SUV in 2015, the Model 3 mass-market sedan in 2017, and the Model Y crossover in 2020. Tesla became the world's most valuable automaker by market capitalization during the early 2020s. The company also expanded into energy storage and solar energy products, including the Powerwall home battery system and solar roof tiles.

Musk's tenure at Tesla has involved repeated regulatory and legal scrutiny. In September 2018, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Musk, alleging securities fraud in connection with a tweet in which he stated he had "funding secured" to take Tesla private at $420 per share. Musk and Tesla each agreed to pay $20 million in fines as part of a settlement, and Musk agreed to step down as Tesla's chairman while retaining his role as CEO.

In November 2025, Tesla shareholders approved a pay package for Musk valued at approximately $1 trillion, to be disbursed over a ten-year period contingent upon Musk meeting specific performance milestones.

As of February 2026, a trial was underway in San Francisco in which a group of investors sued Musk for allegedly making misleading statements about bot accounts on Twitter during his acquisition of the platform. Jury selection in the case was notably difficult, with dozens of prospective jurors dismissed due to stated biases.

Acquisition of Twitter and Rebranding as X (2022–present)

In October 2022, Musk completed the acquisition of Twitter for approximately $44 billion. Following the acquisition, Musk implemented significant changes to the platform, including large-scale layoffs of staff, the introduction of a paid verification system (Twitter Blue, later X Premium), and changes to content moderation policies. Musk stated that his goal was to decrease censorship on the platform and promote free speech.

In July 2023, Musk rebranded Twitter as X, replacing the platform's bird logo and domain with X branding, a name that connected back to his earlier X.com venture. The rebranding was met with mixed reactions. Critics pointed to an increase in hate speech and the spread of misinformation on the platform following Musk's changes to content moderation. Media commentators, including television host John Oliver, characterized the platform under Musk's ownership as diminished in reliability and utility.

Other Ventures

Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit artificial intelligence research organization. He later departed the organization's board, citing disagreements with its direction. His growing discontent with OpenAI's trajectory in the AI industry led him to establish xAI as an alternative AI venture. xAI developed the Grok chatbot and, by 2026, had entered into agreements with the U.S. Department of Defense to deploy Grok in classified military systems.

In 2016, Musk co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology company focused on developing brain–computer interface devices. In 2017, he founded The Boring Company, a tunnel construction and infrastructure company aimed at reducing urban traffic congestion through underground transit systems.

Political Activities and Role in the Trump Administration (2024–2025)

Musk was the largest individual donor in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, supporting Republican candidate Donald Trump. He founded the political action committee America PAC to support the campaign. In February 2026, the Georgia State Election Board issued a letter of reprimand to America PAC for sending pre-filled absentee ballot applications during the 2024 election cycle.

Following Trump's inauguration in January 2025, Musk was appointed Senior Advisor to the President and served as the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a government cost-cutting initiative. Musk appeared at a White House news conference on February 11, 2025, defending plans to reduce federal spending. His role attracted public backlash, and experts later assessed that the full effect of DOGE's budget cuts may never be fully quantified.

Musk's tenure in the administration ended on May 28, 2025, following a public disagreement with Trump. After leaving, Musk returned to managing his portfolio of companies.

Musk has also been identified as a supporter of far-right figures and political parties internationally. His political activities, public statements, and social media posts have made him a polarizing public figure. He has faced criticism for spreading COVID-19 misinformation, promoting conspiracy theories, and affirming antisemitic, racist, and transphobic comments on his platform.

Personal Life

Musk married Canadian author Justine Wilson in 2000. The couple had six children together (one of whom died in infancy). They divorced in 2008. Musk subsequently married British actress Talulah Riley in 2010. They divorced in 2012, remarried in 2013, and divorced for a second time in 2016.

Musk was in a relationship with Canadian musician Grimes (Claire Boucher) beginning around 2018. As of public reporting, Musk has fourteen publicly known children from multiple relationships, including his daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson, who legally changed her name and gender marker in 2022.

In 2019, Musk was sued by British cave diver Vernon Unsworth after Musk referred to him as "pedo guy" on Twitter during the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue. A jury found in Musk's favor in the defamation case.

Musk's emails to Jeffrey Epstein were included among documents published as part of the Epstein files between 2025 and 2026, which became a topic of worldwide debate.

Musk maintains residences in Texas, where both Tesla and SpaceX have significant operations. Flight tracking data for January 2026 documented Musk's private jet traveling between Austin and international destinations including Switzerland.

Recognition

Musk has received numerous awards and honors throughout his career. He was named to Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people multiple times and was named Time Person of the Year in 2021. The Royal Aeronautical Society awarded him the Gold Medal, and he has received various engineering and space-related honors for SpaceX's achievements in reusable rocket technology and commercial spaceflight.

Musk's companies have collectively received significant recognition. Tesla was credited with accelerating the global transition to electric vehicles, and SpaceX's innovations in reusable rocketry fundamentally altered the economics of space launch. The development of the Starlink satellite constellation brought internet access to remote regions and conflict zones.

At the same time, Musk's public persona has attracted sustained criticism and legal challenges. The SEC enforcement action against him in 2018, the ongoing litigation over the Twitter acquisition, and controversies over his political activities and social media conduct have all contributed to a complex public profile. As of 2026, jury selection difficulties in litigation involving Musk were attributed to strong negative public sentiment, with a judge in San Francisco reducing the jury pool significantly after many prospective jurors expressed inability to be impartial.

Legacy

Musk's career spans multiple industries—online payments, automotive manufacturing, aerospace, artificial intelligence, and social media—and his companies have had measurable effects on each of these sectors. PayPal helped establish online payments as a mainstream consumer behavior. Tesla's electric vehicles contributed to a shift in the global automotive industry toward electrification, prompting legacy automakers to accelerate their own electric vehicle programs. SpaceX's development of reusable rockets reduced the cost of access to space and enabled a new era of commercial spaceflight, including crewed missions to the International Space Station for NASA.

His acquisition of Twitter and its transformation into X reshaped debates about content moderation, free speech, and the role of social media platforms in public discourse. The platform's changes under Musk's ownership became a case study in the consequences of altering content moderation policies at scale.

Musk's brief tenure in the Trump administration as head of DOGE introduced new questions about the role of private-sector figures in government reform. A year after DOGE's implementation, analysis by policy experts suggested that the full impact of the initiative's cuts to federal spending and staffing might not be fully measurable.

Musk's political evolution—from supporting Democratic candidate Barack Obama and later expressing support for Andrew Yang's 2020 presidential campaign to becoming the largest donor to Donald Trump's 2024 campaign and aligning with far-right causes internationally—has been the subject of extensive media analysis. His public statements on immigration, artificial intelligence, demographic decline, and free speech have generated debate across the political spectrum.

As of February 2026, with an estimated net worth of approximately $852 billion, Musk remains the wealthiest individual in the world and one of the most scrutinized figures in global business and politics.

References

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