Elon Reeve Musk is a businessman recognized for his leadership in SpaceX, the space exploration company, and Tesla, Inc., the automotive company. He is also known for owning X Corp. (the company behind the social media platform X, previously known as Twitter), and for being a co-founder of the Boring Company, xAI, Neuralink, and OpenAI.
Bio and Higher Education of Elon Musk
Elon Musk, born Elon Reeve Musk on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, the administrative capital of South Africa, has British and Pennsylvania Dutch heritage. His mother, Maye, is a model and dietitian originally from Saskatchewan, Canada, who was raised in South Africa. His father, Errol Musk, is a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant, emerald dealer, and property developer, and he co-owned a rental lodge at the Timbavati Private Nature Reserve.
Elon Musk was born in Pretoria and briefly attended the University of Pretoria. At 18, he moved to Canada, gaining citizenship through his mother, Maye, who was Canadian-born. Two years later, he enrolled at Queen's University in Canada. Musk then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned bachelor's degrees in economics and physics. In 1995, he relocated to California to attend Stanford University but ultimately decided not to enroll in classes.
Net Worth and Salary
Elon Musk is the wealthiest individual in the world; as of December 2024, Forbes estimates his net worth to be $430 Billion. The startup was acquired by Compaq for $307 million in 1999. That same year, Musk co-founded X.com, a direct bank. X.com merged with Confinity in 2000 to form PayPal.
In 2002, Elon Musk acquired United States citizenship, and that October eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion. Using $100 million of the money he made from the sale of PayPal, Musk founded SpaceX, a spaceflight services company, in 2002.