Elon Musk
| Personal Details | |
|---|---|
| Born | 28 June 1971 Pretoria, Transvaal, South Africa |
| Nationality | South African, Canadian, American |
| Career & Education | |
| Education | Queen's University; University of Pennsylvania (BS, BA) |
| Recognition & Links | |
| Awards | Fellow of the Royal Society (2018), Time Person of the Year (2021) |
Elon Reeve Musk (born 28 June 1971) is a South African-born American business magnate, engineer, and investor. He is the founder, CEO, and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO, and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CTO of X Corp. (formerly Twitter); founder of the Boring Company and X.AI; and co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI.
Early Life & Education
Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa. He attended the University of Pretoria briefly before moving to Canada at age 18 to attend Queen's University. He later transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he received bachelor's degrees in economics and physics.
Career & Breakthroughs
Zip2 and PayPal
In 1995, Musk co-founded Zip2, a web software company, which was acquired by Compaq in 1999. He then co-founded X.com, an online bank that merged with Confinity in 2000 to form PayPal. eBay acquired PayPal in 2002 for $1.5 billion.
SpaceX
Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with the goal of reducing space transportation costs and enabling the colonization of Mars. SpaceX developed the Falcon 9 orbital rocket, the Dragon spacecraft, and the Starship rocket system.
Tesla
Musk joined Tesla Motors, Inc. in 2004 as product architect and chairman, later becoming CEO in 2008. Tesla became the world's most valuable automaker and accelerated the global transition to sustainable transportation.
Recognition
- Fellow of the Royal Society (2018)
- Time Person of the Year (2021)