Elon Musk is currently the richest man on the earth. He is one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs.
Elon Musk’s birth and age
Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, third largest city of South Africa, on 28th June 1971. He is 53.
Elon Musk’s parents
Elon Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother.
Elon Musk’s height and weight
He is 5 feet 11 inches in height and has 73 Kg (160lbs) weight.
Elon Musk’s family background
Elon Musk was born to Maye Musk and Errol Musk. His father Maye Musk was a renowned model and nutritionist whereas his mother Errol Musk was an electromechanical engineer. Etymologically, the word Elon has been described as “a dreadful human being.” Regarding his siblings, Elon Reeve Musk is the eldest of his parents’ three children, and a citizen of three countries: South Africa, Canada, and the United States.
Elon Musk’s early childhood
In his early days, Elon Musk used to display an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At the age of 12, he prepared a video game and sold it to a computer magazine. In fact, he grew up with his head stuck in books and computers. He was bullied and often beaten up by classmates as a little, timid youngster until he grew strong enough to defend himself in his teen age.
Elon Musk’s wives
Elon Musk is known for his five wives including two ex-wives. Their names were known as Avery Hartmans, Sinéad Baker, Mary Meisenzahl, Sindhu Sundar, and Sam Tabahriti. Interestedly, it is known that Elon Musk has been divorced three times, dated celebrities, and has nine children, including twins and triplets. His ex-wives are Justine Wilson and Talulah Riley.
Musk and Hollywood actress Amber Heard dated in 2016-2017, whom he had been reportedly pursuing since 2012. Heard’s former husband, actor Johnny Depp, accused Heard and Musk of cheating while the former was still married to him.
In 2018, Musk and Canadian musician Grimes revealed that they were dating. Later in 2022, Grimes revealed that her and Musk have separated but remain cordial.
Elon Musk’s children
Elon Musk has total 10 children. He has 6 children from Canadian author Justine Wilson. Their first child died when he was just 10 weeks old. After his death, the couple had 1 twins and 1 triplets. He has two children from Musician Grimes. Later, he has twins from Shivon Zilis. He has one daughter from his girlfriend Grimes. Her name is Xaiver Alexadnar Musk. Elon Musk and Grimes owned their daughter in March 2022. Later, his transgender Daughter Xaiver Alexander filed a case in LA Court for her recognition as female Vivian Jenna Wilson.
In 2020, Grimes gave birth to their son in May named was “X Æ A-12” or “X Æ A-Xii”. In December 2021, Grimes and Musk had a second child, a daughter named Exa Dark Sideræl Musk (nicknamed “Y”), born via surrogacy.
Elon Musk has 4 sons named as Griffin, Xavier, Damian, Saxon, Kai.
Elon Musk’s home
Elon Musk’s primary residence is a modest house in Boca Chica, Texas, USA.
It was widely reported that Musk sold all his five residential properties in 2020 to move to a modest two-bedroom house in Boca Chica, Texas. Musk had earlier tweeted that he rents the property from SpaceX.
Migration to Canada and USA
Elon Musk left South Africa in 1988 after getting a Canadian passport because he refused to support apartheid (Separate living due to Racial Discrimination) through compulsory military duty and wanted to pursue the higher economic prospects offered in the United States. He travelled to Canada at the age of 17 to attend Queen’s University and got rid of military service in South Africa eventually. Musk got his Canadian citizenship the same year, partly because he thought it would be easier to get American citizenship.
Higher studies at USA
Elon Musk kept on moving to the United States in 1992 to study business and physics at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned an undergraduate degree in economics before continuing on to earn a second bachelor’s degree in physics. Musk went to Stanford University in California to earn a PhD in energy physics after leaving Penn. But that PhD couldn’t make it to Elon Musk degrees since he walked out of Stanford after only two days to start his first firm. He worked in the summer of 1995 and relocated to Silicon Valley. Kimball Musk, Elon’s 15-month younger brother, had recently graduated from Queen’s University with a business degree and had travelled to California to join him.
Partnership with brother in internet business
As the early Internet grew in popularity, the both brothers Kimball and Elon Musk decided to develop a company called Zip2, an internet business directory with maps. That’s how Elon Musk started entering into the business world. Zip2 eventually recruited angel investors and grew into a profitable firm thanks to the brothers’ efforts. Zip2 was sold to Compaq for ＄307 million in 1999 by the brothers.
Elon Musk’s X.com company
Elon Musk, subsequently, created his own online financial services company, X.com, a company formed by Peter Thiel and two others mere months after X.com and with headquarters in the same building.
Elon Musk’s adventure of Paypal
In March 2000, Elon’s two firms joined and adopted the name of their major product, PayPal, an online money transfer service for individuals. In October 2002, Embay, the online auction site, purchased PayPal for ＄1.5 billion in Ebay stock. Elon Musk, who had been the largest shareholder in PayPal with 11.7% of the company’s equity shares, found himself with ＄165 million in Embay stock at the age of 31.
Elon Musk’s Space X and Tesla Motors
Elon Musk also risked his entire fortunate in Space X and Tesla Motors. Elon Musk’s success story helped engineers to join Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning to help operate Tesla Motors in 2004. At this platform, he played a key role in the development of the world’s first electric vehicle, the Tesla Roadster. Musk took over as CEO and product architect after Eberhard was fired from the company in 2007 due to a series of conflicts. Tesla has grown to be one of the most popular and desirable vehicle brands in the world under his leadership. Elon Musk’s Space X has signed many high-profile contracts with NASA and the US Air Force to manufacture rockets and execute military missions. He has been vocal about his desire to work with NASA on a collaborative mission to deploy an astronaut to Mars by 2025.
Elon Musk joins Twitter (now ‘X’)
Musk joined the social media service Twitter in 2009, and, as @elonmusk, he became one of the most popular accounts on the site, with more than 154.5 million followers as of now. He expressed reservations about Tesla’s being publicly traded, and in August 2018 he made a series of tweets about taking the company private at a value of $420 per share, noting that he had “secured funding.” The following month the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Musk for securities fraud, alleging that the tweets were “false and misleading.” Shortly, thereafter Tesla’s board rejected the SEC’s proposed settlement, reportedly because Musk had threatened to resign.
Elon Musk owns Twitter
Elon Musk, has completed his $44bn (£38.1bn) takeover of Twitter in 2022. Earlier, he owned Twitter after longest waffling, lawsuits, verbal mudslinging and the near miss of a full blown trial.
Elon Musk’s net worth
Recently, Forbes and Bloomberg have ranked Elon Musk as the world’s richest person, estimating his net worth to be between $230bn (£179bn) and $240bn (£187bn) as of July 2023.
Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg
Twitter owner Elon Musk announced recently that he and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg have agreed to terms on an MMA fight. He began feuding with Zuckerberg after reports emerged that Instagram, owned by Zuckerberg’s company, Meta Platforms, launched Threads, a Twitter competitor.
Elon Musk’s perspective on digital currencies
Musk also champions digital currencies and has a hand in several other smaller companies, including tunnel-maker the Boring Company and experimental brain-computer start-up Neuralink. Musk, who wears the mantle of a workaholic proudly, has often said he’s not in business simply to make money – claims he repeated recently with regard to his Twitter takeover.
“Elon only gets involved with things if he feels that they’re critically important for some reason… for the sake of society or humanity,” says friend and Tesla investor Ross Gerber.
Elon Musk’s political thoughts
Elon Musk, who became a US citizen in 2002, has resisted efforts to label his politics – calling himself “half-Democrat, half-Republican”, “politically moderate” and “independent”. He has injected himself into some of the world’s hottest geopolitical fights – suggesting that China should establish a “special administrative zone” in Taiwan, and proposing terms to resolve the war in Ukraine that were adamantly rejected by many of the country’s top leaders. In the US, he moved to Texas, complaining of California’s regulations and high taxes; has clashed with union organizers; and, in the spring of 2020, decried coronavirus lockdowns as “fascist”.
Donald Trump association
Elon Musk was one of the first business executives to part ways with former president Donald Trump, quitting a White House business council after Trump withdrew the US from a global climate agreement.
But he has also made it clear that he’s not a fan of President Joe Biden, whom he sees as snubbing Tesla while promoting electric vehicles.
Direct political donations are relatively small for a man of his wealth – having donated just $100,000 since 2004, according to Politico – fairly evenly split between the parties, at least in the early years: he gave to former President Barack Obama in 2011 and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in 2015, though more recently has focused on Republican.
