The Man Called Elon Musk: Biography & Net worth

Born               –           Elon Reeve Musk on June 28, 1971 (age 49) in Pretoria, South Africa

Citizenship  –           South Africa (1971–present), Canada (1971–present), United States (2002–present)

Education     –           Queen’s University, University of Pennsylvania (BA, BS)

Occupation  –           Engineer, industrial designer, entrepreneur

Years active             –           1995–present

Net worth    –           US$54.6 billion (July 2020)

Title   –           Founder, CEO, lead designer of SpaceX, CEO, product architect of Tesla, Inc, Founder of The Boring Company and X.com (now PayPal), Co-founder of Neuralink, OpenAI, and Zip2, Chairman of SolarCity

Spouse(s)     –           Justine Wilson(m. 2000; div. 2008)

Talulah Riley (m. 2010; div. 2012), (m. 2013; div. 2016)

Partner(s)    – Grimes (2018–present)

Children       –           7

Parents         –           Errol Musk (father), Maye Musk (mother)

Relatives      –           Kimbal Musk (brother), Tosca Musk (sister), Lyndon Rive (cousin)

Elon Reeve Musk FRS; born June 28, 1971 is an engineer, industrial designer, technology entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is a citizen of South Africa, Canada, and the United States. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer/designer of SpaceX; early investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; founder of The Boring Company; co-founder of Neuralink; and co-founder and initial co-chairman of OpenAI. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2018. In December 2016, he was ranked 21st on the Forbes list of The World’s Most Powerful People, and was ranked joint-first on the Forbes list of the Most Innovative Leaders of 2019. As of July 2020, his net worth was estimated at $54.6 billion and he is listed by Forbes as the 31st-richest person in the world. He is the longest tenured CEO of any automotive manufacturer globally.

Musk was born to a Canadian mother and South African father and raised in Pretoria, South Africa. He briefly attended the University of Pretoria before moving to Canada when he was 17 to attend Queen’s University. He transferred to the University of Pennsylvania two years later, where he received a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Wharton School and a bachelor’s degree in physics from the College of Arts and Sciences. He moved to California in 1995 to begin a Ph.D. in applied physics and material sciences at Stanford University, but decided to pursue a business career instead of enrolling. He co-founded (with his brother Kimbal) Zip2, a web software company, which was acquired by Compaq for $340 million in 1999. Musk then founded X.com, an online bank. It merged with Confinity in 2000, which had launched PayPal the previous year and was subsequently bought by eBay for $1.5 billion in October 2002.

In May 2002, Musk founded SpaceX, an aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company, of which he is CEO and lead designer. He joined Tesla Motors, Inc. (now Tesla, Inc.), an electric vehicle manufacturer, in 2004, the year after it was founded, became its product architect, and became its CEO in October 2008. In 2006, he helped create SolarCity, a solar energy services company (now a subsidiary of Tesla). In 2015, Musk co-founded OpenAI, a nonprofit research company that aims to promote friendly artificial intelligence. In July 2016, he co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology company focused on developing brain–computer interfaces. In December 2016, Musk founded The Boring Company, an infrastructure and tunnel construction company focused on tunnels optimized for electric vehicles.

In addition to his primary business pursuits, Musk has envisioned a high-speed transportation system known as the Hyperloop. Musk has said the goals of SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity revolve around his vision to “change the world and help humanity”. His goals include reducing global warming through sustainable energy production and consumption and lessening the risk of human extinction by establishing a human colony on Mars.

In 1995, Musk and his brother, Kimbal, started Zip2, a web software company, with money raised from a small group of angel investors. The company developed and marketed an internet city guide for the newspaper publishing industry, with maps, directions and yellow pages, with the vector graphics mapping and direction code being implemented by Musk in Java. Musk obtained contracts with The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune,[68][69] and persuaded the board of directors to abandon plans for a merger with CitySearch. Compaq acquired Zip2 for US$307 million in cash, in February 1999. Musk received US$22 million for his 7 percent share from the sale.

In March 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services and e-mail payment company, with US$10 million from the sale of Zip2 One year later, the company merged with Confinity, which had a money-transfer service called PayPal. The merged company focused on the PayPal service and was renamed PayPal in 2001. In October 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for US$1.5 billion in stock, of which Musk received US$165 million. Before its sale, Musk, who was the company’s largest shareholder, owned 11.7% of PayPal’s shares

In July 2017, Musk purchased the domain X.com from PayPal for an undisclosed amount, stating that it has sentimental value to him.

Politically, Musk has described himself as “half Democrat, half Republican” and “I’m somewhere in the middle, socially liberal and fiscally conservative.” In 2018, he stated that he was “not a conservative. I’m registered independent [and] politically moderate.” Prompted by the emergence of artificial intelligence, Musk has voiced support for a universal basic income.

Elon Musk Philanthropy cannot be overlooked as he is chairman of the Musk Foundation, which states its purpose is to provide solar-power energy systems in disaster areas as well as other goals. In 2010, the Musk Foundation collaborated with SolarCity to donate a 25 kW solar power system to the South Bay Community Alliance’s hurricane response center in Coden, Alabama. In July 2011, the Musk Foundation donated US$250,000 towards a solar power project in Sōma, Japan, a city that had been recently devastated by a tsunami.

In October 2018, in an effort to help solve the Flint water crisis, Musk and the Musk Foundation donated over $480,000 to install new water fountains with filtration systems for access to clean water at all Flint, Michigan schools. As of 2019, approximately 30,000 children in all 12 area schools have free, safe drinking water from the water filtration systems. Musk has been a top donor for the ACLU.

In October 2019, Musk donated US$1 million to ‘#TeamTrees’ a tree planting initiative to plant 20 million trees led by the YouTube community and in collaboration with Arbor Day Foundation.

Family and Relationships

Tosca Musk, Elon’s sister, is a filmmaker. She is the founder of Musk Entertainment and has produced various movies.

Musk met his first wife, Canadian author Justine Wilson, while both were students at Ontario’s Queen’s University. They married in 2000 and separated in 2008. Their first son, Nevada Alexander Musk, died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) at the age of 10 weeks. They later had five sons through in vitro fertilization – twins in 2004 (Griffin and Xavier), followed by triplets in 2006 (Kai, Saxon, and Damian). They share custody of all five sons.

In 2008, Musk began dating English actress Talulah Riley, and in 2010, the couple married. In January 2012, Musk announced that he had ended his four-year relationship with Riley, tweeting to Riley, “It was an amazing four years. I will love you forever. You will make someone very happy one day.” In July 2013, Musk and Riley remarried. In December 2014, Musk filed for a second divorce from Riley; however, the action was withdrawn. The media announced in March 2016 that divorce proceedings were again underway, this time with Riley filing for divorce from Musk. The divorce was finalized in late 2016.

Musk began dating American actress Amber Heard in 2017, they split up after one year due to their conflicting schedules.

On May 7, 2018, Musk and Canadian musician Grimes revealed that they had begun dating. On January 8, 2020, Grimes announced that she was pregnant with their first child. Grimes gave birth to a son on May 4, 2020. According to Musk and Grimes, his name was “X Æ A-12” (pronounced /ˈɛks.æʃˌeɪ.twɛlv/ EKS-ash-AY-twelve or /ˈɛks.æʃˌaɪ/ EKS-ash-EYE), however the name was deemed illegal under California law, because it contained characters that are not in the modern English alphabet, and was then changed to “X Æ A-Xii”. This drew confusion, as Æ is not a letter in the modern English alphabet. The child was eventually named “X AE A-XII”, with “X” as a first name and “AE A-XII” as a middle name.

According to Forbes real time net worth, Elon Musk is worth 54.6 Billion Dollars, making him the 31^st richest man on earth.

ON FORBES LISTS, MUSK IS

#31 – Billionaires 2020

#23 – Forbes 400 2019

#1 – Innovative Leaders 2019

#25 – Powerful People 2018

#12 – Richest In Tech 2017.

Currently, his source of wealth can be attributed to Telsa Motors, Space X

Source: Wikipedia, forbes, biography.com