Who Is Elon Musk?

Entrepreneur Elon Musk has achieved global fame as the chief executive (CEO) of electric autos maker Tesla Inc. (TSLA) and CEO of the private space company SpaceX. Musk co-founded PayPal (PYPL), was an early investor in several tech companies, and in April 2022 he began negotiations for a deal to take Twitter Inc. (TWTR) private. His success and personal style has given rise to comparisons to other colorful tycoons from U.S. history, including Steve Jobs, Howard Hughes, and Henry Ford. He was named the richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of $220 billion as of June 2022. 1 Musk first achieved that distinction in 2021, surpassing Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos. 2 Let's look briefly at the life of the man who has scaled the pinnacle of the business world. Early Life and Education Elon Reeve Musk was born in 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa, the oldest of three children. His father was a South African engineer, his mother a Canadian model and nutritionist. 3 4 After his parents divorced in 1980, Musk lived primarily with his father. He would later dub his father "a terrible human being… almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done." 3 Bullied as a Child Musk attended the private, English-speaking Waterkloof House Preparatory School—he started a year early—and later graduated from Pretoria Boys High School. A self-described bo okworm, he made few friends in those places. 

 

 

“They got my best (expletive) friend to lure me out of hiding so they could beat me up. And that (expletive) hurt,” Musk said. “For some reason, they decided that I was it, and they were going to go after me nonstop. That’s what made growing up difficult. 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.”6

Early Accomplishments

Technology became an escape for Musk. At 10, he became acquainted with programming using a Commodore VIC-20, an early and relatively inexpensive home computer. Before long, Musk had become proficient enough to create Blastar—a video game in the style of Space Invaders. He sold the BASIC code for the game to a PC magazine for $500.7

In one telling incident from his childhood, Musk and his brother, planned to open a video game arcade near their school. Their parents nixed the plan.8

Musk's College Years

At 17, Musk moved to Canada. He would later obtain Canadian citizenship through his mother.9

After emigrating to Canada, Musk enrolled in Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. It was there that he met Justine Wilson, an aspiring writer. They would marry and have five sons together, twins and triplets, before divorcing in 2008.10

Entering the U.S.

After two years at Queen’s University, Musk transferred to the University of Pennsylvania. He took on two majors, but his time there wasn’t all work and no play. With a fellow student, he bought a 10-bedroom fraternity house, which they used as an ad hoc nightclub.11

Musk graduated with a bachelor of science degree in physics, in addition to a bachelor of arts in economics from the Wharton School.12 The two majors foreshadowed Musk’s career, but it was physics that left the deepest impression.

“(Physics is) a good framework for thinking,” he would say later. “Boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there.”13

Notable Accomplishments

Musk was 24 years old when he moved to California to pursue a Ph.D. in applied physics at Stanford University. But, with the Internet exploding and Silicon Valley booming, Musk had entrepreneurial visions dancing in his head. He left the Ph.D. program after just two days.14

X.com

In 1995, with $15,000 and his younger brother Kimbal at his side, Musk started Zip2, a web software company that would help newspapers develop online city guides.1516

In 1999, Zip2 was acquired by Compaq Computer Corp. for $341 million.17 Musk used his Zip2 buyout money to create X.com, a fintech venture before that term was in wide circulation.