Elon Musk Biography
Elon Musk’s biography runs from Pretoria, South Africa, where he was born on 28 June 1971, to Starbase, Texas, where he runs SpaceX. He sold his first software at 12, moved to Canada at 17, studied physics and economics in the US, and built Zip2, PayPal, SpaceX and Tesla, becoming the first person worth $1 trillion in 2026 12.
Elon Musk’s early life in South Africa
Elon Reeve Musk was born in Pretoria on 28 June 1971 to Errol Musk, a South African electromechanical engineer and property developer, and Maye Musk (née Haldeman), a Canadian-born model and dietitian 1. He is the eldest of three children, with a younger brother, Kimbal Musk, and a younger sister, Tosca. He also has four paternal half-siblings 1.
His parents divorced in 1979, and at about nine he chose to live with his father, a decision he has since described as a mistake 1. He was a heavy reader and taught himself to program. At 12 he sold the code for a space video game, Blastar, to a computer magazine for about $500 1.
Elon Musk’s education
In June 1989, at 17, Musk moved to Canada. He held Canadian citizenship through his mother and wanted to avoid compulsory service in the South African military 1. After working odd jobs, he entered Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, in 1990.
Around 1992 he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied physics and economics. Penn awarded him a BA in physics and a BS in economics from the Wharton School in 1997 1. In 1995 he was accepted into a materials-science PhD programme at Stanford but left before classes began to start a company 1.
| Institution | Years | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Queen’s University, Canada | 1990-1992 | Transferred |
| University of Pennsylvania | about 1992-1995 | BA physics, BS economics (Wharton), awarded 1997 |
| Stanford University | 1995 | Accepted to a PhD programme; did not enrol |
First companies: Zip2 and PayPal
In 1995 Musk co-founded Zip2 with his brother Kimbal and investor Greg Kouri. It sold online city guides and maps to newspapers. He later recalled: “The website was up during the day and I was coding it at night, seven days a week, all the time.” 1
In February 1999 the computer maker Compaq bought Zip2 for $307 million in cash. Musk received $22 million for his 7% stake 1. He put most of it into X.com, an online bank he co-founded in 1999.
In March 2000 X.com merged with Confinity, Peter Thiel’s payments start-up, which owned a service called PayPal. Musk was replaced as chief executive later that year. In 2002 eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion in stock, and Musk’s 11.72% stake was worth $175.8 million 1. The sale gave him the money for his next two companies.
How Elon Musk founded SpaceX
After PayPal, Musk became interested in sending a greenhouse to Mars. In 2001 he made two trips to Moscow to try to buy refurbished intercontinental missiles as launch vehicles, without success 1. He decided to build rockets himself.
He founded SpaceX in May 2002 with about $100 million of his own money, and became its chief executive and chief engineer 1. The company’s first rocket, Falcon 1, failed on its first three launches. The fourth, in 2008, reached orbit, and in December that year NASA gave SpaceX a $1.6 billion contract to resupply the International Space Station 1.
The successes kept coming:
- 2012: Dragon became the first commercial spacecraft to dock with the space station 1.
- 2015: A Falcon 9 first stage landed upright for the first time, the start of reusable rockets. Work on Starlink began the same year 1.
- 2018: The first Falcon Heavy launched with Musk’s own Tesla Roadster as a test payload 1.
- 2020: The Demo-2 mission became the first private crewed flight to the space station 1.
- 2026: Starship, the largest rocket ever built, reached orbit for the first time on 28 September 3.
How Elon Musk built Tesla
Tesla was incorporated in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. In February 2004 Musk led its first funding round with $6.35 million, becoming chairman and its largest shareholder 1. He later gained the right to be called a co-founder.
Musk became chief executive in 2008. Tesla’s first car, the Roadster, was followed by the Model S in 2012 and the mass-market Model 3 in 2017. Tesla listed on Nasdaq in 2010, and in October 2021 its market value passed $1 trillion 1.
In 2016 Tesla bought SolarCity, the solar company Musk had helped his cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive start in 2006, for about $2 billion 1. In June 2025 Tesla began a small paid robotaxi service in Austin, Texas 4.
The 2008 crisis and other setbacks
Musk has called 2008 the worst year of his life. Falcon 1 had failed three times, Tesla was running out of cash during the financial crisis, and his first marriage was ending 1. He split his remaining money between the two companies. The fourth Falcon 1 launch and the NASA contract, followed by a Tesla funding round in December, saved both.
Later setbacks were public too. In 2018 the US Securities and Exchange Commission sued him over a post saying he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private. He settled, paid a fine and gave up the Tesla chairmanship 1. The same year he was sued for defamation over a post about a cave diver in Thailand; a jury found him not liable 1. After he bought Twitter in 2022 for about $44 billion, the company lost many advertisers, and he stepped back as its chief executive in 2023 1.
Neuralink, The Boring Company, OpenAI and xAI
Musk’s later ventures moved into AI and new technology:
- OpenAI (2015): He co-founded the AI lab as a non-profit, donated about $50 million and left its board in 2018 1.
- Neuralink (2016): A brain–computer interface company, which began human trials after US regulators approved them in 2023 1.
- The Boring Company (2017): A tunnelling company aimed at cutting traffic 1.
- X Corp (2022): He bought Twitter and renamed it X in 2023.
- xAI (2023): His AI company, which launched the Grok chatbot in November 2023 1. In March 2025 xAI bought X in an all-stock deal valuing X at $33 billion 5.
Politics and the government role
Musk endorsed Donald Trump in July 2024 and was the largest individual donor of that election, spending about $291 million 1. In January 2025 he became a special government employee and the de facto leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which cut federal spending and staff. He left on 28 May 2025, when his 130-day term ended 1.
Within weeks he fell out publicly with the president over a spending bill, and on 5 July 2025 he announced a new “America Party” 6. These moves drew strong support and strong criticism, and they affected Tesla’s sales and brand in some markets. In 2026 he again spent heavily in US elections, giving more than $90 million to support Republican candidates 1.
The SpaceX IPO and the first trillion
In February 2026 SpaceX took over xAI, creating the most valuable private company in history at $1.25 trillion 7. On 12 June 2026 SpaceX listed on Nasdaq in the largest IPO ever, and Musk became the first person worth more than $1 trillion 2. His full fortune and how it is counted are on net worth.
In November 2026 he remains chairman, CEO and CTO of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla 8.
Philanthropy
Musk is president of the Musk Foundation, which funds science, education and renewable energy. It held over $14 billion at the end of 2024, but reporting found it gave away less than the legally required 5% of assets in 2021 and 2022 9. His gifts include $10 million to the Future of Life Institute in 2015 for AI-safety research, $10 million to the University of Texas at Austin in 2021, and $2 billion in Tesla stock to his foundation in 2022 9.