Elon Musk Biography, Companies, Net Worth, Age, Wife, Family, Education, Facts

Elon Musk Biography (Who is Elon Musk?)

Elon Musk (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa), is a South African-born American entrepreneur, investor, industrial designer, engineer, and businessman who founded X.com in 1999 (which later became PayPal), SpaceX in 2002, and investor & CEO of Tesla Motors in 2003. Not just that he is also the founder of The Boring Company founded in 2016; co-founder of Neuralink founded in 2016; and co-founder and initial co-chairman of OpenAI founded in 2015.

Amid an often difficult childhood, Musk developed a relentless work ethic (he is known to work as many as 80 to 120 hours per week) and a tenacious single-minded vision. Musk became a multimillionaire in his late 20s when he sold his start-up company, Zip2, to a division of Compaq Computers. And in January 2021 he became the richest person in the world, surpassing Jeff Bezos.

Quick Information:

NameElon MuskFull NameElon Reeve MuskDate of Birth (DOB)June 28, 1971Zodiac SignCancerBirth PlacePretoria, South AfricaCurrent ResidenceAustin, TexasFather NameErrol MuskMother NameMaye MuskMarital StatusIn RelationshipWivesJustine Wilson (Married in 2000 and separated in 2008)
Talulah Riley ((Married in 2010 and separated in 2016)In RelationshipClaire Elise Boucher, known professionally as GrimesChildren10EducationUniversity of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, Queen’s University, OntarioCitizenshipSouth Africa (1971–present), Canada (1971–present), United States (2002–present)OccupationEntrepreneur, Industrial Designer, EngineerFounder/Co-founder ofSpaceX, Tesla, Zip2, X.com, PayPal, The Boring Company, Neuralink, OpenAINet Worth$264.9 billion USD (2022)Source of WealthTesla, SpaceX, Self Made

Early life

Childhood and Family

Elon Musk (Elon Reeve Musk) was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, Transvaal, South Africa. His father is Errol Musk, a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant, and property developer. His mother is Maye Musk a Canadian model and dietitian. But they divorced when Elon Musk was 10 and lived primarily with his father. He has a younger brother, Kimbal (born 1972), and a younger sister, Tosca (born 1974).

He used to do self-learning from a young age, he spends hours reading a book and was also an avid fan of comics. At the age of 10, he developed an interest in computing while using the Commodore VIC-20. He learned computer programming using a manual and, by age 12, sold the code of a BASIC-based video game he created called Blastar to PC and Office Technology magazine for approximately $500.

He was unusual, introverted, bullied throughout his childhood, and was once hospitalized for a week after a group of boys threw him down a flight of stairs. “I had a terrible upbringing. I had a lot of adversity growing up. One thing I worry about with my kids is they don’t face enough adversity,” he would later say in an interview.

He attended Waterkloof House Preparatory School and Bryanston High School before graduating from Pretoria Boys High School. In 1989, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa and move to Canada because his aim was to go to the United States. Although his father insisted that he attend college in Pretoria, Musk was determined to move to the United States, saying, “I remember thinking and seeing that America is where great things are possible, more than any other country in the world.”

Education

In June 1989, Musk moved to Canada to attend Queen’s University and avoid mandatory service in the South African military. Two years later, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania; he graduated in 1997 with a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in economics from the Wharton School and a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in physics.

In 1994, Musk held two internships in Silicon Valley during the summer: at an energy storage start-up called Pinnacle Research Institute, which researched electrolytic ultracapacitors for energy storage, and at the Palo Alto-based start-up Rocket Science Games.

After leaving Pennsylvania, Musk headed to Stanford University in California to pursue a Ph.D. in energy physics/materials science. He dropped out of Stanford after two days, deciding instead to join the Internet boom and launch an internet startup. He launched his first company, Zip2 Corporation in 1995 with his brother. Also, Musk became a U.S. citizen in 2002.

Personal life

Wives and Children

Musk has been married twice. He met his first wife, Canadian author Justine Wilson, while both were students at Ontario’s Queen’s University. They married in 2000 and separated in 2008. They had six children together but their first son died at the age of 10 weeks from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

In 2008, Musk began dating English actress Talulah Riley, and in 2010, the couple married. They split in 2012 but married each other again in 2013. In December 2014, Musk filed for a second divorce and the divorce was finalized in late 2016.

On May 7, 2018, Musk and Canadian musician Grimes revealed that they were dating. Grimes gave birth to a son on May 4, 2020, and Musk and Grimes, announced that they had named “X Æ A-12”.

However, the name was deemed illegal under California law, because it contained characters that are not in the modern English alphabet, and was then changed to “X Æ A-Xii”. This drew more confusion, as Æ is not a letter in the modern English alphabet. The child was eventually named “X AE A-XII”, with “X” as a first name and “AE A-XII” as a middle name.

Companies & Business Career

Elon Musk With His Brother

Zip2

In 1995, Musk, his brother Kimbal, and Greg Kouri founded the web software company Zip2 with funds from a group of angel investors. The company developed and marketed an Internet city guide for the newspaper publishing industry, with maps, directions, and yellow pages.

They housed the venture at a small rented office in Palo Alto and worked on one computer. Before the company became successful, Musk could not afford an apartment, instead of sleeping on the office couch and showering at the YMCA.

They could only afford one computer and, according to Musk, “The website was up to during the day and I was coding it at night, seven days a week, all the time.” Their efforts, hard work, and dedication materialized when the Musk brothers obtained contracts with The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune.

Musk’s attempts to become CEO were thwarted by the board. In February 1999, Compaq acquired Zip2 for $307 million in cash. Musk received $22 million for his 7 percent share from the sale.

X.com and PayPal

In March 1999, Elon and Kimbal Musk used their money to found X.com an online financial services and e-mail payment company. One year later, the company merged with Confinity, which had a money-transfer service called PayPal. In October 2000, Musk was ousted from his role as CEO due to disagreements with other company executives over his desire to move PayPal’s Unix-based infrastructure to a Microsoft one.

In October 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in stock, of which Musk received $165 million. Before its sale, Musk, who was the company’s largest shareholder, owned 11.7% of PayPal’s shares. In 2017, Musk purchased the domain X.com from PayPal for an undisclosed amount, explaining that it had sentimental value to him.

SpaceX

Musk founded his third company, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, traded as SpaceX, in 2002 with the intention of building spacecraft for commercial space travel and Mars colony to save human existence.

Before creating the SpaceX company, Musk traveled with a group to Moscow to buy refurbished Dnepr Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that could send the greenhouse payloads into space. He met with companies such as NPO Lavochkin and Kosmotras; however, the deal could not be done.

In February 2002, the group returned to Russia to look for three ICBMs but the company offered one rocket for $8 million, which Musk rejected. Then he decided to start a company that could build affordable rockets with $100 million of his early fortune and founded Space Exploration Technologies Corp., traded as SpaceX.

On May 25, 2012, the SpaceX Dragon vehicle berthed with the ISS, making history as the first commercial company to launch and berth a vehicle to the International Space Station. Working towards its goal of reusable rockets, in December 2015, SpaceX successfully landed the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket back near the launch pad, the first time this had been achieved by an orbital rocket.

On February 6, 2018, SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy, the most powerful rocket in operation and the rocket with the fifth-highest thrust ever built. In July 2018, Space X enjoyed the successful landing of a new Block 5 Falcon rocket, which touched down on a drone ship less than 9 minutes after liftoff.

In May 2020, SpaceX launched its first manned flight, the Demo-2, becoming the first private company to both place a person into orbit and dock a crewed space-craft with the ISS.

Starlink Internet Satellites

SpaceX began the development of the Starlink constellation of low Earth orbit satellites in 2015. 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.

SpaceX launched the first batch of 60 satellites in May 2019 and followed with another payload of 60 satellites that November. The total cost of the decade-long project to design, build, and deploy the constellation is estimated by SpaceX to be about $10 billion, including nearly $900 million in Federal Communications Commission subsidies.

Tesla

Musk is the co-founder, CEO, and product architect at Tesla Motors, a company formed in July 2003 that is dedicated to producing affordable, mass-market electric cars as well as battery products and solar roofs. As of 2019, Elon Musk is the longest-tenured CEO of any automotive manufacturer globally.

In March 2008, Tesla built an electric sports car, the Tesla Roadster, and sold 2,500 vehicles to 31 countries. It was the first serial production all-electric car to use lithium-ion battery cells. In June 2012 Tesla began delivery of its four-door Model S sedan. Although it unveiled its third product, the Model X, in February 2012, the launch was delayed until September 2015. The Model 3 was officially launched in early 2019. As of March 2020, the Tesla Model 3 is the world’s best-selling electric car, with more than 500,000 units delivered.

In 2014, Musk announced that Tesla would allow its technology patents to be used by anyone in good faith in a bid to entice automobile manufacturers to speed up the development of electric cars. In November 2019, Musk unveiled the Tesla Cybertruck, an all-electric pickup truck.

As of January 29, 2016, Musk owned about 28.9 million Tesla shares, which equated to about 22% of the company. And as of December 31, 2019, Musk owns 38,658,670 shares or 20.8% of all Tesla shares.

SolarCity

Musk provided the initial concept and financial capital for SolarCity, which his cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive co-founded in 2006. He is a majority shareholder in each entity. By 2013, SolarCity was the second largest provider of solar power systems in the United States.

In August 2016, Tesla acquired SolarCity for over $2 billion. The announcement of the deal resulted in a more than 10% drop in Tesla’s stock price. Because at the time, SolarCity was facing liquidity issues, and Musk and Tesla’s directors acquired SolarCity without informing Tesla shareholders. Consequently, multiple shareholder groups have filed a lawsuit against Musk and Tesla’s directors.

In January 2020, Tesla directors settled the lawsuit and leaving Musk the sole remaining defendant. Because the court has confirmed that Musk was also aware of the company’s liquidity issues.

Neuralink

In 2016, Musk co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology start-up company to integrate the human brain with AI. The company is centered on creating devices that can be implanted in the human brain, with the eventual purpose of helping human beings merge with software and keep pace with advancements in artificial intelligence.

The Boring Company

On December 17, 2016, while stuck in traffic, Musk tweeted “I am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging …” He then founded ‘The Boring Company’ (TBC). On January 21, 2017, Musk tweeted “Exciting progress on the tunnel front. Plan to start digging in a month or so.” Discussions with regulatory bodies began in January 2017.

In February 2017, the company began digging a 30-foot (9.1 m) wide, 50-foot (15 m) long, and 15-foot (4.6 m) deep “test trench” on the premises of Space X’s offices in Los Angeles, since the construction requires no permits. A tunnel beneath the Las Vegas Convention Center was completed in early 2020. Local officials have approved further expansions of the tunnel system.

Other Inventions & Innovations

Hyperloop

In August 2013, Musk unveiled a concept for a high-speed transportation system called the “Hyperloop,” an invention that would foster commuting between major cities while severely cutting travel time.

Although he introduced the Hyperloop with claims that it would be safer than a plane or train, with an estimated cost of $6 billion. Musk noted that the Hyperloop could take from seven to 10 years to be built and ready for use.

OpenAI

In December 2015, Musk announced the creation of OpenAI, a not-for-profit AI research company. OpenAI aims to develop artificial general intelligence in a way that is safe and beneficial to humanity.

List of Awards received by Elon Musk:

• Entrepreneur of the Year (2007) for his work on Tesla and SpaceX
• Index Design award (2007) for his design of the Tesla Roadster
• National Conservation Achievement award (2008) for Tesla and SolarCity
• Awarded the US$250,000 Heinlein Prize (2011) for Advances in Space Commercialization
• Royal Aeronautical Society’s highest award: a gold medal (2012)
• Awarded the President’s award (2014) for Exploration and Technology of the Explorers Club
• Edison Achievement Award (2014) for his “commitment to innovation throughout his career
• Oslo Business for Peace Award (2017)
• Starmus Festival’s Stephen Hawking Medal (2019) for Science Communication
• Axel Springer Award (2020)
• Awarded with the Medal of Order of Merit (2022) for Defense by the Brazilian government after negotiating the launch of the Starlink internet service in the Amazon rainforest

Elon Musk FAQ:

When was Elon Musk born?

Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971.

How did Elon Musk become famous?

Elon Musk co-founded the electronic payment firm PayPal and founded the spacecraft company SpaceX. He became chief executive officer of the electric-car maker Tesla.

Where did Elon Musk go to college?

Elon Musk went to Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, and then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

What did Elon Musk Accomplish?

Elon Musk founded SpaceX, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the chief executive officer and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electric cars.

How many hours a week does Elon Musk work?

Elon Musk says he works more than 120 hours a week and if there is a lot of work at times, he sleeps on his factory floor.

How many hours does Elon Musk sleep?

Elon Musk says he sleeps 6 hours a day.

What nationality is Elon Musk?

American,
Canadian,
South African

Who invented Tesla?

Tesla Inc. was invented by Elon Musk, JB Straubel, Martin Eberhard, Marc Tarpenning, and Ian Wright.

How much of Tesla does Elon Musk own?

As of 2022, Elon Musk owns 175 million shares, or 17% of all Tesla shares.