Elon Musk, a South African-born American entrepreneur who co-founded PayPal and SpaceX, a manufacturer of launch vehicles and spacecraft, was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa. In addition, he served as the company’s CEO and one of the company’s earliest significant investors in Tesla. Additionally, in 2022, Musk bought Twitter.
His accomplishments and distinctive personality have led to comparisons to other colorful businessmen from American history, such as Steve Jobs, Howard Hughes, and Henry Ford. As of October 2022, Elon musk current net worth is $212 billion, making him the richest man in the world. Musk first attained the title in 2021, beating Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN). Elon musk highest net worth is $212 billion.
Early life Of Elon Net Worth
Musk was conceived by a Canadian mother and a South African father. Early on, he showed aptitude for computers and entrepreneurship. He made a video game at the age of 12 and sold it to a computer magazine. Musk left South Africa in 1988 after getting a Canadian passport because he didn’t want to participate in the country’s mandatory military service, which supported apartheid, and because he wanted to pursue the better economic opportunities in the United States.
Education of Elon Musk
The oldest of three children, Elon Reeve Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1971. His mother was a Canadian model and nutritionist, while his father was a South African engineer. Following his parents’ 1980 divorce, Musk spent most of his time with his father. “A terrible human being… practically every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done,” he would later describe his father as.
“I came from a poor family. I had a lot of hardship as a child. My concern with my children is that they don’t experience enough hardship “Later, Musk would state.
Bullied as a Child
Musk graduated from Pretoria Boys High School after enrolling at the prestigious, English-speaking Waterkloof House Preparatory School, where he began a year early. He characterized himself as a bookworm, thus he didn’t make many acquaintances there.
Musk claimed, “They beat me up and they got my best (expletive) friend to coax me out of hiding, and that (expletive) hurt. Growing up was challenging because, for a number of years, there was no respite. “You get chased around by gangs at school who tried to beat the (expletive) out of me, and then I’d come home, and it would just be awful there as well. For some reason, they decided that I was it, and they were going to go after me nonstop.”
Early Accomplishments of Elon Musk
For Musk, technology turned became a refuge. At age 10, he learned how to program on a Commodore VIC-20, an early and reasonably priced home computer. Musk quickly attained the necessary skill set to produce Blastar, a video game modeled after Space Invaders. For $500, he offered the game’s BASIC code to a PC magazine.
In one interesting early memory, Musk and his brother wanted to start a video game arcade close to their school. Their parents rejected the scheme.
Musk’s College Years
Musk migrated to Canada at age 17. Later, he would become a citizen of Canada thanks to his mother. Musk migrated to Canada and enrolled at Kingston, Ontario’s Queen’s University. There, an ambitious writer named Justine Wilson was introduced to him. Before divorcing in 2008, they would be married and produce five sons—twins and triplets—together.
Entering the U.S.
Musk transferred to the University of Pennsylvania after spending two years at Queen’s University. Despite taking on two majors, he didn’t spend all of his time studying. He acquired a 10-bedroom fraternity house with a classmate, which they converted into a temporary nightclub. Musk received two degrees from the Wharton School: a bachelor of arts in economics and a bachelor of science in physics.
Although Musk’s career was anticipated by his two majors, physics had the greatest impact. He would subsequently remark that “physics is a good context for thinking.” “Reduce things to their simplest forms, then argue from there.”
Notable Accomplishments Of Musk

At the age of 24, Musk relocated to California to attend Stanford University to work toward a doctorate in applied physics. However, with the growth of Silicon Valley and the internet, Musk had business ideas dancing in his head. After only two days, he dropped out of the Ph.D. program.
X.com
In 1995, Musk founded Zip2, a web software company that assisted newspapers in creating online city guides, with the assistance of his younger brother Kimbal and $15,000 in his bank account. For $341 million, Compaq Computer Corp. purchased Zip2 in 1999. Before the term “fintech” was widely used, Musk founded X.com with the money from the Zip2 buyout. Confinity, a company that specialised in money transfers, and X.com merged to form PayPal.
Prior to eBay (EBAY) purchasing the payments startup for $1.5 billion, Peter Thiel fired Musk as CEO of PayPal, although Musk still benefited from the acquisition thanks to his 11.7% ownership share in the company. In a 2018 interview, Musk stated that his PayPal earnings after taxes came to roughly $180 million. “Of that money, $100 million went to SpaceX, $70 million to Tesla, and $10 million to SolarCity. In fact, I had to borrow money to pay my rent.
PayPal and SpaceX
Musk studied at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 1992. There, he earned bachelor’s degrees in economics and physics, which he later acquired in 1997.
He enrolled in Stanford University’s physics graduate program but dropped out after just two days because he believed that working in the field of the Internet would have a greater impact on society than studying physics. He established Zip2, a service that offered maps and business directories to online publications, in 1995. After the computer maker Compaq paid $307 million for Zip2 in 1999,
Musk launched X.com, which eventually changed its name to PayPal, a company that specialized in online money transfers. PayPal was purchased by the online auction site eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion.
Musk has long held the belief that for life to continue, humans must evolve into a multi-planetary species. He was not pleased with the rocket launchers’ high cost, though.
He established Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) in 2002 to produce rockets at lower costs. The Falcon 1 (first launched in 2006) and the bigger Falcon 9 (first launched in 2010) were the company’s first two rockets, and both were created to be considerably less expensive than rival rockets.
The Falcon Heavy, a third rocket that made its debut in 2018, was built to transport 117,000 pounds to orbit, more than double the weight of its main rival, the Boeing Company’s Delta IV Heavy, at only a third of the price. The Super Heavy-Starship system, which will replace the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, has been unveiled by SpaceX.
100,000 kilograms (220,000 pounds) would be able to be lifted into low Earth orbit by the Super Heavy first stage. The Starship, a spacecraft made for creating bases on the Moon and Mars as well as offering quick travel between cities on Earth, would be the payload.
The International Space Station’s supply ship, the Dragon, was also created by SpaceX. (ISS). Up to seven astronauts can fit on a Dragon spacecraft, which carried astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020 on a crewed voyage. In 2020, the Super Heavy Starship system launched its initial test flights. Musk served as the company’s CEO in addition to serving as the Dragon, Starship, and Falcon rockets’ principal designer.
Tesla
Musk has long been intrigued by the potential of electric vehicles, and in 2004 he contributed significantly to the funding of Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning’s electric vehicle startup, Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla). Tesla unveiled their first vehicle, the Roadster, in 2006.
It had a range of 245 miles (394 km) on a single charge. It was a sports car that could accelerate from 0 to 60 miles per hour (97 kilometers per hour) in under four seconds, in contrast to the majority of previous electric vehicles, which Musk believed to be stodgy and boring.
The company’s initial public offering in 2010 generated around $226 million in revenue. Tesla unveiled the Model S car two years later, and automotive journalists praised both its performance and appearance. The business received additional recognition for its 2015 launch of the Model X luxury SUV. The less-priced Model 3 entered production in 2017 and quickly rose to the position of the best-selling electric car of all time.
Musk proposed the Hyperloop in 2013, a pneumatic tube in which a pod carrying 28 passengers would move 350 miles (560 km) between both Los Angeles and San Francisco in 35 minutes at a maximum speed of 760 miles (1,220 km/h), almost the speed of sound, in response to dissatisfaction with the estimated cost ($68 billion) of a high-speed rail system in California.
Musk asserted that the Hyperloop would only cost $6 billion and could carry the six million passengers who use that route annually with pods leaving on average every two minutes. He claimed he could not spend enough time to the development of the Hyperloop due to his responsibilities as CEO of SpaceX and Tesla.
Musk signed up for the social media platform Twitter in 2009, and as @elonmusk, he quickly rose to prominence, amassing more than 85 million followers as of 2022. In August 2018, he published a series of tweets about taking Tesla private at a price of $420 per share, stating that he had “got finance.” The value of $420 was seen as a joke allusion to April 20, a day observed by cannabis enthusiasts. The following month, the U.S.
Musk was sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for securities fraud, according to the SEC, who claimed the tweets were “false and misleading.” Soon after, the SEC’s settlement proposal was reportedly rejected by Tesla’s board because Musk had threatened to leave.
A harsher settlement was ultimately agreed upon, but the announcement caused Tesla shares to plunge. The agreement stipulated that Musk would give up his position as chairman for three years while remaining CEO, that his tweets would need to be reviewed by Tesla attorneys before being posted, and that $20 million in fines would be imposed on both Tesla and Musk.
FAQs
How Rich Is Elon Musk?
As of October 2022, Elon musk latest net worth is $212 billion, making him the richest person on the globe. He is on 1st in the list of the 10 richest people in the world
What Does Elon Musk Do at Tesla?
On the official Tesla website, Elon Musk is identified as the company’s co-founder and CEO. The business disclosed an additional Musk title as “Technoking of Tesla” in a 2021 securities filing.
Was Elon Musk Born Rich?
No, Elon Musk was raised in a family of middle-class parents. He reportedly struggled to pay his rent and had over $100,000 in student loan debt when he established X.com in 1995. elon musk becomes richest man after.
What Companies Does Elon Musk Own?
Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company, Neuralink, and Twitter are just a few of the businesses in which Elon Musk has a sizable investment.