Elon Musk was born in South Africa, where his life story began. Later, he developed into an American businessman who started SpaceX, a company that makes launch vehicles and spacecraft and co-founded PayPal. In addition, he served as CEO of the electric car company Tesla and was one of its original major investors.

The eldest of his parents’ three children, Elon Reeve Musk holds citizenship in the United States, Canada, and South Africa. Elon Musk has called his father, Errol Musk, an electromechanical engineer, “a dreadful human being.” Maye Musk, a model and nutritionist, gave birth to him in 1971. Discover Elon Musk’s history, which will inspire future generations, by reading the full article.

Elon Musk’s Early Life

The father is from South Africa, and the mother is from Canada. Musk was born there. Musk was engrossed in books and computers during his upbringing. Until he developed the self-defense skills necessary to protect himself during a growth spurt in his teens, he was frequently beaten up by class bullies and harassed by his classmates. At twelve years old, he created a video game that he sold to a computer publication. Musk obtained a Canadian passport and departed South Africa in 1988, opting to pursue the better economic opportunities available in the US rather than participating in mandatory military service in support of apartheid.

Elon Musk Qualification

Musk fled South Africa’s military service at the age of seventeen and traveled to Canada to attend Queen’s University. Partially due to his belief that obtaining Canadian citizenship would facilitate obtaining American citizenship, Musk obtained both citizenships in the same year. At the University of Pennsylvania, Musk relocated to the US in 1992 to pursue studies in business and physics. In addition to his first bachelor’s degree in economics, he also obtained a second bachelor’s degree in physics. After leaving Penn to pursue a Ph.D. in energy physics, Musk attended Stanford University in California. Yet, Elon Musk left Stanford after just two days to launch his first company, so that Ph.D. was unable to reach Elon Musk’s degrees.

Elon Musk Works

In 1995, Musk moved to Silicon Valley during the summer. He enrolled in the applied physics PhD at Stanford University but left after just two days. Elon Musk’s 15-month-old brother, Kimball, had just received his business degree from Queen’s University and had flown out to California to be with him. The brothers decided to launch Zip2, an online business directory featuring maps, as the early Internet gained popularity. Elon Musk began his career in business in this manner.

The brothers’ efforts paid off, as Zip2 eventually attracted angel investors and expanded into a successful business. The brothers sold Zip2 to Compaq in 1999 for ＄307 million. Later on, Elon founded X.com, his own online financial services company. Confinity, its primary rival, was a business founded by Peter Thiel and two other people just months after X.com and housed in the same building. After merging in March 2000, the two companies took on the name of their main offering, an individual online money transfer service called PayPal. The online auction site Ebay acquired PayPal in October 2002 for ＄1.5 billion in Ebay shares. Elon Musk, who held 11.7% of PayPal’s equity shares, making him the company’s largest shareholder, found himself, at age 31, in possession of Ｑ165 million in Ebay stock.

Following his departure from PayPal, he has established, co-founded, and/or led businesses that address the three main existential risks to the long-term survival of humanity: the risk of climate change, the risk of becoming a monoculture, and the risk of the human species becoming extinct. He staked everything on the early success of two of these businesses, SpaceX and Tesla Motors.

Elon Musk Success Story

In 2004, Musk began working with engineers Marc Tarpenning and Martin Eberhard at Tesla Motors, where he was instrumental in creating the world’s first electric car, the Tesla Roadster. Following Eberhard’s 2007 dismissal from the company over a string of disagreements, Musk assumed the role of CEO and product architect. Under his direction, Tesla has developed into one of the most well-known and sought-after auto brands globally.

SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, has secured numerous prominent contracts from NASA and the US Air Force to produce rockets and carry out military operations. Musk has expressed openly his intention to collaborate with NASA on a joint mission aimed at sending a human to Mars by 2025. Although Elon Musk hasn’t always had an easy ride, he has always been an advocate of many space-age technologies. After experiencing bullying at school, he went on to become a small business owner and ultimately the CEO of two creative firms. That being said, he resolved to go above and beyond from that point on.

Due to its acquisition of SolarCity, Tesla is well-known not only for producing electric cars but also for its robust presence in the solar energy industry. Established in 2006, this clean-energy services company currently develops two solar batteries that are meant to be used primarily for stationary energy storage. The Powerpack is intended for use with an electric utility grid or in a business setting, while the Powerwall is intended for off-grid and backup power in residential settings.

Facts about Elon Musk

• Elon Musk was born in South Africa in 1971.
• He first became wealthy as a co-founder of PayPal, but he is most known for co-founding SpaceX and Tesla Motors.
• Musk had a significant influence on the fictional character Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man. Iron Man 2 was, in fact, partially filmed both inside and outside of SpaceX. In the movie, Elon Musk even makes an appearance!
• Musk receives Ｑ1 per year from Tesla Motors, which is comparable to the salary of other well-known businessmen like Steve Jobs.
• At the age of twelve, Musk taught himself how to run computers, and he went on to create the $500 video game Blastar.
• Elon Musk did not acquire US citizenship until 2002 when he was thirty-one years old.
• At the age of 17, Elon Musk left South Africa and moved to Canada. Eventually, he enrolled in college at the University of Pennsylvania in the US.
• After graduating, Musk relocated to California to attend Stanford University’s graduate degree in physics. After just two days at Stanford, he left to pursue opportunities in the rapidly expanding Internet sector.
• After quitting graduate school, Musk quickly established his first startup, Zip2, which provided online newspapers with business directories and maps. He sold the business for ＄307 million in 1999.
• When X.com, an online payment startup that Musk co-founded in 1999, transformed into PayPal, it was eventually acquired by eBay for Ｑ1.5 billion in equity, of which Musk received Ｑ165 million.
• Musk is one of the co-founders of Tesla Motors, a company that creates electric sports cars. In the electric vehicle industry, Tesla was able to succeed where other major manufacturers failed. He is currently the CEO and chief product architect of Tesla.
• With a 5.4/5 safety rating—the highest ever for a car—the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration awarded the Tesla Model S.
• Musk is one of the main forces behind SolarCity, which he founded with the help of his cousins. He is also the primary shareholder of the business.
• Additionally, Elon Musk founded SpaceX, formerly known as Space Exploration Technologies, a company that specializes in rocket technology and designs and builds space launch vehicles. His objective is to bring down the cost of space travel so that more people can live outside of Earth.
• When Musk first started trying to raise money for SpaceX, investors wrote it off as a pipe dream. To make SpaceX a reality, Musk invested all of his money in it—disregarding every piece of written business advice.

Final words

Since he was a young child, Elon Musk has demonstrated an entrepreneurial bent. His mother, a dietician, and father, an engineer, welcomed him with open arms, realizing and supporting their son’s love of technology. When he was ten years old, he got his first computer and taught himself how to program. At the age of twelve, the young lad created “Blastar,” a fully functional video game that he purportedly sold for ＄500. 1988 saw Elon Musk graduate from Pretoria Boys High School. In 1989, he moved to Canada and enrolled at Queen’s University in Ontario to escape South Africa’s mandatory military service. After that, he only spent five months at the University of Pretoria.

Musk continued to obtain a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. After being accepted into the University of Stanford’s Graduate degree in Physics, he also departed after two days to follow his entrepreneurial goals. We can infer from Elon Musk’s biography that he has set out to achieve objectives that have inspired not only him but also the group of people he has enlisted to assist him. These goals are all focused on the future and significantly bettering the current circumstances, whether they are electric vehicles or interplanetary space travel.