Who is Elon Musk? Everything You Need to Know

Quick Facts

Girlfriend: Grimes (2018)

Also Known As: Elon Reeve Musk

Age: 53 Years, 53 Year Old Males

Family:

Spouse/Ex-: Justine Musk (m. 2000–2008), Talulah Riley (m. 2010–2012; m. 2013–2016)

father: Errol Musk

mother: Maye Haldeman

siblings: Kimbal Musk, Tosca Musk

children: Damian Musk, Griffin Musk, Kai Musk, Nevada Alexander Musk (died), Saxon Musk, Xavier Musk

Born Country: South Africa

CEOs Automobile Industry

Ancestry: South African Canadian, South African American, German American

Personality: INTJ

City: Pretoria, South Africa

Founder/Co-Founder: PayPal, SpaceX, Zip2, X.com, Musk Foundation, Tesla Motors

More Facts

education: University Of Pennsylvania

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Elon Musk owns several companies, including Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and The Boring Company.
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What is Elon Musk's role at Tesla?

Elon Musk is the CEO and founder of Tesla, an electric vehicle and clean energy company.
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What is Neuralink and what is Elon Musk's involvement with it?

Neuralink is a neurotechnology company founded by Elon Musk. It aims to develop implantable brain–machine interfaces.
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What is the Hyperloop and how is Elon Musk associated with it?

The Hyperloop is a proposed mode of passenger and freight transportation. Elon Musk conceptualized the idea and open-sourced it for development.
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What are some notable achievements of SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk?

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Childhood & Early Life

Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa. The oldest of three siblings with a prodigious family name, he grew up in the last decades of Apartheid.

His parents were Maye Musk, a British-Canadian model and Errol Musk, a South Africa born British electrical engineer. When they divorced in 1980, Elon stayed mainly with his father in South Africa. A few years later, he began teaching himself computer programming and sold his first video game at the age of 12.

For his undergraduate education he attended the Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, in 1990. He eventually transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, earning dual degree in Physics and Economics.

In addition to the bachelor’s degrees, he earned in physics and economics, he also holds an honorary doctorate in Design from the ‘Art Center College of Design’ and an honorary doctorate in Aerospace Engineering from the ‘University of Surrey’.

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Career

He moved to California to attend Stanford for a PhD in applied physics in 1995, but quit within a few of days to pursue his own interests in avenues of technology and entrepreneurship. Later that year, he worked with his brother, Kimbal Musk, to develop the software company ‘Zip2’, which provided services to high end newspaper clients like 'The New York Times' and the 'Chicago Tribune'.

After the successful sale of Zip2 to Compaq in 1999, Musk went straight into his next venture, an online financial service called ‘X.com’. Shortly after the company acquired a money transfer service called ‘PayPal’, through a merger, they began to focus their efforts exclusively on building this internet payment service. The success of ‘PayPal’ led Musk to sell his stock in the company to ‘eBay’ for $165 million.

In 2002, he invested his millions in his third company ‘Space Exploration Technologies’ or just ‘SpaceX’. Within seven years, the company had designed the ‘Falcon’ line of space launch vehicles and the ‘Dragon’ line of multi-purpose spacecraft and was making history with their privately funded innovation. ‘SpaceX’ received contracts from NASA to create a launch craft to deliver cargo to the ‘International Space Station’.

Tesla Motors was founded with the mission of designing and building electric cars. Musk invested in the company and became its chairman in 2004, a year after its inception, taking on an active role in the design of the ‘Roadster’, which won the ‘Global Green’ product award. During the recession when the company was adversely affected, he went on to become the CEO and product architect of the company, a role he holds till today.

After designing the initial concept for ‘SolarCity’, Musk remains its biggest shareholder. Today, it is the second largest provider of solar energy in the United States, with a focus on combating global warming.

On August 12, 2013, Musk announced revolutionary plans for a high speed travel technology that, in theory, could replace airplane travel as a faster and cheaper option. His company ‘SpaceX’ is currently working on putting his plans into practice, with the design intended to run entirely on solar energy.

He has envisioned a high-speed transportation system known as the Hyperloop. It incorporates reduced-pressure tubes in which pressurized capsules ride on air bearings driven by linear induction motors and air compressors.

In July 2017, he announced that first successful test run of Hyperloop has been done in Nevada. He also said that he has got verbal approval to build a hyperloop from New York City to Washington D.C.

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Controversy

In September 2018, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Musk for a tweet in which he claimed that funding had been secured for taking Tesla. Musk reached a private. The lawsuit sought to bar Musk from serving as CEO on publicly traded companies.

Later on Musk reached a settlement with the SEC. Under it terms, Musk and Tesla were fined $20 million each and Musk had to step down as Tesla chairman while remaining Tesla's CEO. In place of Musk, Robyn Denholm was named as Tesla's acting Chairman

Major Works

SpaceX has completed several contracts for NASA, sending its Falcon 9 spacecraft to the International Space Station with cargo. This spacecraft replaced the space shuttle when it retired in 2011.

Musk was heavily involved in the design of Tesla Motors' first electric sports car, the ‘Tesla Roadster’. Musk received the 2006 ‘Global Green’ product design award for this vehicle, presented by Mikhail Gorbachev.

Awards & Achievements

In 2010, the premier world organization for aerospace records, the ‘Fédération Aéronautique Internationale’ awarded Musk the ‘FAI Gold Space Medal. He shares this highest honor with prominent personalities like Neil Armstrong and John Glenn.

He has won multiple awards and recognitions for his many advancements in science, technology and business alike and in 2013 was named 'Fortune' magazine's 'Businessperson of the Year' for his companies ‘SpaceX’, ‘Tesla Motors’ and ‘SolarCity’

In 2016, he was ranked 21st on the Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People.

He was ranked 21st wealthiest person in America in the 2017 Forbes 400 list.

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Family & Personal Life

Elon Musk has married thrice and twice to the same woman. His first marriage was to Canadian author Justine Wilson in 2000. They had six children together: all sons. Their first son, Nevada Alexander Musk, died at the age of 10 weeks. The couple had five more sons through IVF; twins in 2004, followed by triplets in 2006. Elon Musk and Justine Wilson divorced in 2008.

In 2008, he began dating English actress, Talulah Riley, and the two of them got married in 2010. The couple separated in 2012.

In 2013, Elon Musk remarried Talulah Riley but the couple filed for divorce in 2014 and it was finalised in 2016.

Elon Musk was briefly in a relationship with American actress Amber Heard in 2016, but the couple split owing to their conflicting schedules.

Elon Musk started dating Canadian musician Grimes in 2018. In May 2020, Grimes gave birth to their son. In March 2021, Musk stated that he was single. In March 2022, Grimes revealed that they have broken up and she further stated that they welcomed a daughter through surrogacy in December 2021.

In 2022, Insider, an American financial and business news website, published court documents stating that Elon Musk had fathered twins with Shivon Zilis, a top executive at one of his companies, in November 2021. As of January 2025, Elon Musk is known to have fathered at least 12 children.

Elon Musk's sister, Tosca Musk, is the founder of Musk Entertainment and has produced several movies.

Facts About Elon Musk

Elon Musk was the inspiration for the character of Tony Stark in the "Iron Man" movies, as the filmmakers saw similarities between Musk's innovative spirit and Stark's genius inventor persona.

Musk once launched a Tesla Roadster into space aboard his company SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket, with the car now orbiting the sun as part of a demonstration mission.

In addition to his work with Tesla and SpaceX, Musk co-founded Neuralink, a company focused on developing brain-computer interface technology to enhance human capabilities.

Musk has a love for Monty Python and even purchased the submarine car used in the film "The Spy Who Loved Me," with plans to convert it into a real working car-submarine.

Musk has a playful side, as evidenced by his hosting of "Saturday Night Live" and his willingness to engage with fans and critics alike on social media platforms like Twitter.

Elon Musk Biography

You wanted to know

What companies does Elon Musk own?

What is Elon Musk's role at Tesla?

What is Neuralink and what is Elon Musk's involvement with it?

What is the Hyperloop and how is Elon Musk associated with it?

What are some notable achievements of SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk?