Elon Musk’s life story starts in South Africa, where he was born. He later became an influential American entrepreneur, co-founding PayPal and establishing SpaceX, a company specializing in launch vehicles and spacecraft. Musk was also a key early investor and the CEO of Tesla, known for its electric vehicles.
Elon Reeve Musk is the oldest of his parents’ three children and holds citizenship in South Africa, Canada, and the United States. Born in 1971 to Maye Musk, a model and nutritionist, and Errol Musk, an electromechanical engineer whom Elon has described as “a dreadful human being,” his journey is a source of inspiration for future generations. Read the full article to explore Elon Musk’s remarkable history.
Elon Musk Early Life
Musk was born in Canada to South African and Canadian parents. Musk was engrossed in books and computers as a child. When he was a small, shy child, he was bullied by his peers and frequently beaten up by bullies in the classroom until he developed the strength to fight himself during a growth spurt in his teens. At twelve, he created a video game that he sold to a computer magazine. Musk obtained a Canadian passport and fled South Africa in 1988, opting to pursue the better economic opportunities available in the US rather than comply with the military conscription that supported apartheid.
Elon Musk Qualification
At the age of 17, Musk left South Africa to attend Queen’s University while avoiding conscription into the military. In part because he believed it would be simpler to obtain American citizenship that way, Musk obtained Canadian citizenship in the same year. In 1992, Musk relocated to the US to attend the University of Pennsylvania to pursue studies in business and physics. Before pursuing a second bachelor’s degree in physics, he obtained an undergraduate degree in economics. After leaving Penn, Musk attended Stanford University in California to obtain a Ph.D. in energy physics. That Ph.D., however, was unable to reach Elon Musk’s degrees since he left Stanford after just two days to launch his first company.
Elon Musk works
In the summer of 1995, Musk moved to Silicon Valley and began a PhD program in applied physics at Stanford University, but left after just two days. His younger brother, Kimball Musk, who had recently graduated from Queen’s University with a business degree, joined him in California. As the early Internet began to gain
traction, the Musk brothers decided to launch Zip2, an online business directory with maps. This marked Elon Musk’s entry into the business world.
Zip2 attracted angel investors and became a profitable enterprise. The company was sold to Compaq for $307 million in 1999. Following this, Musk founded X.com, an online financial services company. X.com faced competition from Confinity, founded by Peter Thiel and others, which was based in the same building. In March 2000, the two companies merged and rebranded as PayPal, a service for online money transfers. eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion in eBay stock in October 2002. At age 31, Musk, who was the largest shareholder with 11.7% of PayPal’s equity, received $165 million in eBay stock.
Since leaving PayPal, Musk has founded, co-founded, and led ventures aimed at mitigating three major existential risks to humanity: climate change, dependence on a single planet, and the potential obsolescence of the human species. He invested much of his early fortune into building two of these ventures, SpaceX and Tesla Motors.
Elon Musk’s Success Story
In 2004, Musk joined engineers Marc Tarpenning and Martin Eberhard to assist in running Tesla Motors. It was there that he helped design the Tesla Roadster, the first electric car in history. After a string of disagreements led to Eberhard’s dismissal from the firm in 2007, Musk assumed the roles of CEO and product architect. Under his direction, Tesla has become one of the most well-known and coveted auto brands worldwide.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has secured numerous prominent contracts with NASA and the US Air Force to produce rockets and carry out military operations. Musk has made no secret of his ambition to collaborate with NASA on a joint mission to send a human to Mars by the year 2025. Though it hasn’t always been easy for him, Elon Musk has always been a supporter of several space-age technologies. After being tormented in school, he moved on to become a small business owner and finally the CEO of two creative firms. However, he chose to go from there and never accepted anything less.
In addition to its focus on electric vehicles, Tesla has established a significant foothold in the solar energy sector through its acquisition of SolarCity. Founded in 2006, this clean-energy services company now offers two rechargeable solar batteries, primarily for stationary energy storage. The Powerwall is intended for residential backup power and off-grid applications, while the Powerpack is designed for use by businesses and electric utility grids.
Facts about Elon Musk
- Born in 1971 in South Africa, Elon Musk is renowned for co-founding Tesla Motors and SpaceX, but his initial wealth came from co-founding PayPal.
- The character Tony Stark, or Iron Man, was heavily inspired by Musk. Notably, scenes from “Iron Man 2” were filmed at SpaceX, and Musk even makes a cameo appearance in the movie.
- Musk’s official annual salary at Tesla Motors is just $1, akin to Steve Jobs and other prominent entrepreneurs.
- At age 12, Musk taught himself computer programming and created the video game Blastar, which he sold for $500.
- Musk became an American citizen at the age of 31 in 2002.
- He emigrated from South Africa to Canada at age 17 and later attended the University of Pennsylvania in the U.S.
- After graduating, Musk moved to California to attend graduate school in physics at Stanford University but dropped out after just two days to dive into the burgeoning Internet industry.
- He quickly founded his first startup, Zip2, which provided online newspapers with maps and business directories. The company was sold for $307 million in 1999.
- In 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online payment service that evolved into PayPal and was later acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion, with Musk receiving $165 million.
- Musk also co-founded Tesla Motors, which designs and manufactures electric sports cars. Tesla succeeded whereas many other major manufacturers had failed in the electric vehicle market. Musk is currently Tesla’s CEO and chief product architect.
- The Tesla Model S received a 5.4/5 safety rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the highest rating ever awarded to a car.
- Musk played a key role in founding SolarCity, which he and his cousins established, and he remains the company’s primary shareholder.
- Additionally, Musk founded SpaceX (formerly Space Exploration Technologies), which focuses on designing and manufacturing space launch vehicles. His goal is to reduce space travel costs and extend human life beyond Earth.
- Initially struggling to secure funding for SpaceX, which many investors dismissed as unrealistic, Musk invested all of his funds to bring the company to fruition, defying conventional business wisdom.
Conclusion
Elon Musk displayed entrepreneurial tendencies from a young age. Raised by his engineer father and dietician mother, who nurtured his passion for technology, Musk received his first computer at the age of ten and taught himself programming. By twelve, he had created a fully functional video game called “Blastar,” which he reportedly sold for $500. He graduated from Pretoria Boys High School in 1988. To evade South Africa’s mandatory military service, Musk moved to Canada in 1989 and began studying at Queen’s University in Ontario, though he only attended for five months. He then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics. Musk also briefly attended Stanford University’s Physics Graduate Program before leaving after just two days to pursue his entrepreneurial dreams. As we explore Elon Musk’s biography, it’s clear that his ambitions have not only driven his own success but have also inspired the teams he leads. His ventures, whether in interplanetary space travel or electric vehicles, are all aimed at future advancements and significant improvements to current technologies.
