Elon Musk

Elon Musk FRS
Musk in 2018
Born	Elon Reeve Musk (1971-06-28) June 28, 1971 (age 53) Pretoria, Transvaal, South Africa
Citizenship	South Africa Canada United States (from 2002)
Education	Queen's University (transferred) University of Pennsylvania (BA, BS)
Spouses	Justine Wilson ​ ​ (m. 2000; div. 2008)​ Talulah Riley ​ ​ (m. 2010; div. 2012)​ ​ ​ (m. 2013; div. 2016)​
Children	12[1]
Parents	Errol Musk Maye Musk
Relatives	Kimbal Musk (brother) Tosca Musk (sister) Lyndon Rive (cousin)
Awards	Full list
Elon Musk's Voice Musk speaking about India and Narendra Modi
Signature

This article is part of a series about Elon Musk
Personal Awards and honors Views Family Filmography Legal affairs Wealth Companies Zip2 X.com PayPal SpaceX Starlink Tesla, Inc. Energy criticism litigation OpenAI Neuralink The Boring Company Thud X Corp. Twitter under Elon Musk Twitter, Inc. acquisition xAI In popular culture Elon Musk (Isaacson) Elon Musk (Vance) Ludicrous Power Play "Members Only" "The Platonic Permutation" "The Musk Who Fell to Earth" "One Crew over the Crewcoo's Morty" Elon Musk's Crash Course Second presidency of Trump Department of Government Efficiency Related America PAC Boring Test Tunnel Hyperloop SolarCity Tesla Roadster in space TSLAQ Twitter Files 2022 Twitter suspensions Tesla and unions
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Elon Reeve Musk FRS (/ˈiːlɒn/; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman known for his key roles in the space company SpaceX and the automotive company Tesla, Inc. His other involvements include ownership of X Corp., the company that operates the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), and his role in the founding of the Boring Company, xAI, Neuralink, and OpenAI. Musk is the wealthiest individual in the world; as of November 2024^[update], Forbes estimates his net worth to be US$323 billion.^[2] Musk has been described as an American oligarch due to his extensive influence over public discourse, social media, industry, politics, and government policy.^[3]

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 the age of 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 never enrolled in classes, and with his brother Kimbal co-founded the 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 2002, Musk acquired US citizenship, and that October 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 was an early investor in electric-vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors, Inc. (later Tesla, Inc.), providing most of the initial financing and assuming the position of the company's chairman. He later became the product architect and, in 2008, the CEO. 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, merged the company into the newly-created X Corp. and rebranded the service as X the following year. In March 2023, Musk founded xAI, an artificial-intelligence company.

Musk's actions and expressed views have made him a polarizing figure. He has been criticized for making unscientific and misleading statements, including COVID-19 misinformation, promoting right-wing conspiracy theories, and endorsing an antisemitic trope; he has since apologized for the latter. His ownership of Twitter has been controversial because of the layoffs of large numbers of employees, an increase in hate speech, misinformation and disinformation posts on the website, and changes to website features, including verification.

In early 2024, Musk became active in American politics as a vocal and financial supporter of Donald Trump, becoming Trump's second-largest individual donor in October 2024. In November 2024, Trump announced that he had chosen Musk along with Vivek Ramaswamy to co-lead Trump's planned Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) advisory board which will make recommendations on improving government efficiency through measures such as slashing "excess regulations" and cutting "wasteful expenditures".