Global InformationElon Musk information
Elon Musk FRS | |
|---|---|
 Musk in 2022 | |
| Born | Elon Reeve Musk June 28, 1971 Pretoria, Transvaal, South Africa |
| Citizenship |
|
| Education | University of Pennsylvania (BA, BS) |
| Title |
|
| Spouses |
|
| Partners |
|
| Children | 11[a][3] |
| Parents |
|
| Relatives |
|
| Family | Musk family |
| Signature | |
 | |
| ||
|---|---|---|
Companies
In popular culture
Related
|
||
Elon Reeve Musk (/ˈiːlɒn/ EE-lon; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman and investor. He is the founder, chairman, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO, product architect, and former chairman of Tesla, Inc.; owner, executive chairman, and CTO of X Corp.; founder of the Boring Company and xAI; co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI; and president of the Musk Foundation. He is one of the wealthiest people in the world; as of April 2024[update], Forbes estimates his net worth to be $178 billion.[4]
A member of the wealthy South African Musk family, Musk was born in Pretoria and briefly attended the University of Pretoria before immigrating to Canada at age 18, acquiring citizenship through his Canadian-born mother. Two years later, he matriculated at Queen's University at Kingston in Canada. Musk later transferred to the University of Pennsylvania and received bachelor's degrees in economics and physics. He moved to California in 1995 to attend Stanford University, but dropped out after two days and, with his brother Kimbal, co-founded online city guide software company Zip2. 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 October 2002, 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.
In 2004, Musk became an early investor in electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors, Inc. (later Tesla, Inc.). He became the company's chairman and product architect, assuming the position of CEO in 2008. In 2006, Musk helped create SolarCity, a solar-energy company that was acquired by Tesla in 2016 and became Tesla Energy. In 2013, he proposed a hyperloop high-speed vactrain transportation system. In 2015, he co-founded OpenAI, a nonprofit artificial intelligence research company. The following year, Musk co-founded Neuralink—a neurotechnology company developing brain–computer interfaces—and the Boring Company, a tunnel construction company. In 2018, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Musk, alleging that he had falsely announced that he had secured funding for a private takeover of Tesla. To settle the case, Musk stepped down as the chairman of Tesla and paid a $20 million fine. In 2022, he acquired Twitter for $44 billion. He subsequently merged the company into newly created X Corp. and rebranded the service as X the following year. In March 2023, Musk founded xAI, an artificial intelligence company.
Musk has expressed views that have made him a polarizing figure.[5] He has been criticized for making unscientific and misleading statements, including COVID-19 misinformation and antisemitic conspiracy theories.[5][6][7][8] His ownership of Twitter has been similarly controversial, being marked by layoffs of large numbers of employees, an increase in hate speech and misinformation and disinformation on the website, and changes to Twitter Blue verification.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
GrimesVanityFair2022was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Berger (2021), p. 182.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
NYTTAUwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "The Top 10 Richest People In The World (April 2024)". Forbes. April 1, 2024. Archived from the original on February 6, 2024. Retrieved February 6, 2024.
- ^ a b Ghaffary, Shirin (May 20, 2023). "Elon Musk won't stop tweeting his way into trouble". Vox. Archived from the original on October 27, 2023. Retrieved October 28, 2023.
- ^ "Disney, Apple among major companies to pull business from X after Elon Musk's antisemitic post". NBC News. November 18, 2023. Archived from the original on November 18, 2023. Retrieved November 18, 2023.
- ^ Hatmaker, Taylor (November 17, 2023). "Backlash builds after Elon Musk called an antisemitic conspiracy theory the 'actual truth'". Archived from the original on November 18, 2023. Retrieved November 18, 2023.
- ^ "Another Day, Another Antisemitic Conspiracy Theory for Elon Musk and X". Vanity Fair. November 16, 2023. Archived from the original on November 17, 2023. Retrieved November 18, 2023.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).