Elon Musk ( pronounced in English : /ˈiː.lɒnˈmʌsk/ ) , born on June 28 , 1971in Pretoria ( South Africa ), is a South African - Canadian - American entrepreneur , business leader and billionaire .
He is a co-founder and chairman and CEO of the astronautics company SpaceX and CEO of the automotive company Tesla . InJanuary 2021, according to Bloomberg , Elon Musk becomes, at 49 , the richest man in the world, with a fortune estimated at more than 188.5 billion dollars. InOctober 2022, he becomes the owner of Twitter , a $44 billion purchase.
He began his business career as a co-founder of software company Zip2 with his brother, Kimbal. The startup was acquired by Compaq for $ 307 million in 1999. In the same year, Musk co-founded online bank X.com , which merged with Confinity in 2000 to form PayPal . eBay bought PayPal in 2002 for $ 1.5 billion .
In 2002, Musk founded SpaceX, an aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services company, and served as its CEO. In 2004, he invested 6.5 billion dollars in the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla, became its largest shareholder and joined the board of directors, before taking up the post of CEO in 2008. In 2006, he participated in the creation of SolarCity , a solar energy company that was later acquired by Tesla and became Tesla Energy. In 2015, he co-founded and co-chaired OpenAI , a research association promoting friendly artificial intelligence . In 2016, he founded The Boring Company , a tunnel construction company , andNeuralink , a neurotechnology company .
From 2018, Elon Musk has regular setbacks with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and is notably accused of manipulating the stock market, using his influence, in particular via social media, including Twitter. His actions and statements are highly publicized.
Childhood and studies
Elon Reeve Musk was born onJune 28, 1971in Pretoria , South Africa . He is the son of Errol Musk, a wealthy South African engineer and property developer of Afrikaner and Anglo-South African origins, who became co-owner of an emerald mine in Zambia 1 , 2 , and Maye Haldeman , a nutritionist and Canadian model 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 . After his parents divorced in 1979, he continued to live with his father . At the age of 12 , he sold his first program ofvideo game 9 for the equivalent of 500 dollars .
According to his brother Kimbal Musk, Elon Musk would have very early read two books a day in various disciplines. His readings were very wide and diverse, covering many fields such as philosophy, religion, science fiction and programming, engineering, business, technology, product design, energy 10 .
In 1988, then aged 17 , after finishing his studies at Pretoria Boys High School , he announced to his parents that he wanted to go to study in the United States . He then obtained Canadian nationality through his maternal lineage and left South Africa for Kingston , Ontario ( Canada ) 11 , 12 . For Elon Musk, Canadian nationality allows him to then emigrate to the United States to study, more easily than coming from apartheid South Africa 13 , 9 . It also saves him from being called up to serve in South Africa and from doing hismilitary service 14 . In disagreement, his father cut off his food 15 . In Canada, he then joined Queen's University and financed his studies through part-time work and summer jobs in computer science. He graduated in administration in 1992 16 .
In 1992, he left Canada for the United States and joined the University of Pennsylvania to study physics and economics, financing his courses with a scholarship. He studied there for three years, receiving an undergraduate degree after his first two years, and stayed one more year to complete a major in physics and make his undergraduate degree a Joint honors degree . In 1995, he received a scholarship to pursue a doctorate in energy physics at Stanford University . However, he quickly became aware of the development of the Internet at the time and, barely two days after the confirmation of his admission, suspended the preparation of his program to launch his company
Entrepreneurial activities
Zip2
In 1995, Elon Musk co-founded Zip2 , a publisher of online content publishing software for business information. In 1999, Compaq 's AltaVista division acquired Zip2 for $ 341 million in cash and stock options. Elon Musk and his brother Kimbal then own around 12% of Zip2.
X.com/PayPal
InMarch 1999, Elon Musk founded an online bank called X.com . X.com will subsequently cease its banking services, but the online payment company PayPal , which it had acquired inMarch 2000, met with great success. InFebruary 2001, X.com changes its name to PayPal. Inoctober 2002, PayPal is sold to eBay for $ 1.5 billion . At the time of the sale, Elon Musk owned 11.7% of PayPal ( $ 180 million ). THEJuly 5, 2017, Elon Musk buys the domain name X.com from PayPal
SpaceX
InMay 2002, disillusioned by the lack of ambition of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 18 , and rejected by the Russians of NPO Lavochtkine from whom he wanted to buy missiles to convert them into rockets, but who did not consider him serious 19 , Elon Musk founded his third company, Space Exploration Technologies ( SpaceX ), of which he is the current CEO and CTO .
SpaceX develops and produces reusable first-stage space launch vehicles, with the goal of lowering launch costs and the long-term goal of making colonization of the planet Mars possible . SpaceX is working with NASA to transport cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station
