Elon Musk

Who Is Elon Musk?

Elon Reeve Musk is a businessman known for his leadership of Tesla and SpaceX. He has been the wealthiest person in the world since 2025.

He is a cofounder of seven companies, including electric car maker Tesla, rocketmaker SpaceX, and artificial intelligence startup xAI. Furthermore, after SpaceX completed its initial public offering (IPO) in June 2026 and its shares began trading publicly, Musk’s net worth was estimated at more than $1 trillion, making him the first person known to reach that milestone.

His companies are not just businesses. They are bets on humanity’s survival. Every rocket he launches, every electric car he builds, and every AI breakthrough he pursues is rooted in one simple belief — that the future must be earned.

Early Life: Pretoria, Books, and a Boy Who Dreamed Too Big

Birth and Family Background

Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa. His mother, Maye Musk, is a Canadian model and the oldest woman to star in a CoverGirl campaign. Elon’s father, Errol Musk, is a wealthy South African engineer. Elon spent his early childhood with his brother, Kimbal, and sister, Tosca, in South Africa. His parents divorced when he was 10.

He grew up in Waterkloof, an upmarket suburb of Pretoria. Despite a privileged address, his childhood was far from easy.

A Bullied Child Who Found Refuge in Books

Musk was regularly beaten at school. He had trouble making friends, in part due to his difficulty interpreting emotions and personal cues — a trait which Musk would later identify as a symptom of Asperger’s syndrome.

However, books became his escape. During his childhood in South Africa, Musk was an avid reader. His childhood reading included Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, from which he drew the lesson that “you should try to take the set of actions that are likely to prolong civilisation, minimise the probability of a dark age and reduce the length of a dark age if there is one.”

The First Programmer at Age 12

Around the time of his parents’ divorce, Musk developed an interest in computers and taught himself how to program.

At age 12, he created a video game that he sold to a computer magazine for $500. It was called Blastar. Therefore, from the very beginning, Elon Musk did not just dream. He built.

Leaving South Africa

In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa, citing his unwillingness to support apartheid through compulsory military service and his desire for greater economic opportunities available in the United States.

He moved to Canada with $4,000, where he worked on farms and lumber yards as he paved the way for his mother and siblings to join him.

Education: From Toronto to Philadelphia

Musk attended Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he received bachelor’s degrees in physics and economics in 1997.

He then enrolled at Stanford University in California to pursue a PhD in energy physics. However, he left after just two days. Because he saw something bigger. He saw the internet — and he was not about to miss it.

Business Career: Building an Empire From Scratch

Zip2 and X.com: The Internet Entrepreneur (1995–2002)

The South African-born entrepreneur started his first businesses in the 1990s: an online city guide called Zip2 and a digital payment company named X.com, which later became PayPal.

He began a web software company which was sold for $300 million in 1999 and an online bank which became PayPal and was sold for $1.5 billion in 2002.

These early exits gave Musk the capital — and the confidence — to aim much higher. Moreover, they established him as someone who did not just participate in industries. He disrupted them.

SpaceX: Making Humanity Multiplanetary (2002–Present)

In 2002, Musk made one of the most audacious bets in business history. He decided to start a rocket company.

He became an American citizen in 2002. In that same year, he founded SpaceX. His goal was simple but staggering — to make humanity a multiplanetary species by colonizing Mars.

A Falcon 9 rocket carried the first batch of Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit in May 2019. Beta testing commenced in 2020, and commercial services were rolled out in 2021. As of January 2026, there were 9,633 active Starlink satellites, accounting for more than half of all active satellites in orbit.

Then came the historic moment. In June 2026, SpaceX completed its IPO, selling 555.6 million shares at $135 each. The offering — the largest IPO in history at the time — raised $75 billion and valued the company at about $1.77 trillion.

Tesla: Electrifying the World (2004–Present)

Musk owns nearly 11% of Tesla, which he first backed in 2004, and which he has led as CEO since 2008.

Tesla did not just make electric cars. It made electric cars desirable. Because of Tesla, the entire global automotive industry was forced to rethink its future.

Tesla shareholders approved a new $1 trillion compensation package in November 2025 that could push his ownership to nearly 29% of Tesla if all milestones are met.

X (Formerly Twitter): The Free Speech Platform (2022–Present)

Musk diversified his holdings in 2022 by purchasing Twitter, which he renamed X.

Musk bought Twitter in 2022 and rebranded it as X, positioning it as a platform prioritizing free speech and evolving toward an “everything app” with integrated payments and communication.

xAI and the Grok AI Platform (2023–Present)

Sam Altman and Elon Musk were co-chairs of OpenAI when it was founded in 2015. In 2018, Musk proposed taking control of the organization to compete more directly with other artificial intelligence companies, including Google, but Altman declined. Musk then left OpenAI, and the split reflected broader differences over how AI should be developed, governed, and commercialized.

Therefore, Musk built his own. He launched xAI and its flagship product, Grok — a large language model designed to compete directly with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Then came another landmark deal.

SpaceX acquired xAI on February 2, 2026, creating a combined entity initially valued at $1.25 trillion. The deal, structured as an all-stock transaction, valued SpaceX at $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion. The merger brought together SpaceX’s rocket and Starlink satellite operations, xAI’s Grok AI platform and Colossus supercomputer, and the X social media platform under a single corporate umbrella. Musk stated the primary goal was to develop “orbital data centers” — AI compute infrastructure in space.

Neuralink: Connecting Minds to Machines (2016–Present)

In January 2024, Neuralink completed its first implant in a human subject, with Musk saying the results showed promise. A year later, the businessman reported there are now three people with Neuralink implants, and he hopes 20 to 30 more people will join them in 2025.

The vision is bold. Musk wants Neuralink to eventually help people with paralysis, blindness, and neurological disorders. Most importantly, he believes it could one day allow humans to keep pace with artificial intelligence.

The Boring Company: Solving Urban Congestion

The Boring Company was founded to solve one of the most frustrating problems of modern life — traffic. Musk believes underground tunnel networks can move people faster, cheaper, and more cleanly than surface roads. The company has completed tunnels in Las Vegas and continues to pursue projects globally.

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE): A Political Chapter

A vehement supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump, Musk was head of the Department of Government Efficiency, the headline-grabbing advisory group under Trump’s second administration, before announcing his departure in May 2025.

DOGE announced a slew of deep cuts that impacted more than 30 federal departments and agencies.

Musk stepped down from DOGE in May 2025 after expressing disappointment with Trump’s proposed “one big beautiful bill,” arguing that it would increase federal deficits and undermine DOGE’s cost-cutting efforts.

After departing from DOGE, Musk did not retreat from politics. In July 2025, he publicly feuded with President Donald Trump over tax cuts and fiscal policies, culminating in Musk’s announcement of the formation of the America Party — a new political party aimed at promoting government efficiency, technological innovation, and alternatives to the established two-party system.

Net Worth: The World’s First Trillionaire

Three pivotal events between late 2025 and mid-2026 turbocharged his fortune. First, the Delaware Supreme Court’s December 19, 2025 ruling reversed the Tornetta decision and restored his 2018 Tesla compensation package.

As of June 2026, Forbes estimates his net worth to be US$834 billion.

The May 20, 2026 SpaceX S-1 filing targeted a $1.75 trillion IPO valuation — a 40% step-up from the February merger price — that would value Musk’s SpaceX stake alone at approximately $735 billion.

After SpaceX completed its IPO in June 2026, Musk’s net worth was estimated at more than $1 trillion, making him the first person known to reach that milestone.

Per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index as of May 21, 2026, he is worth roughly $722 billion — more than double the second-richest person on the planet, Google co-founder Larry Page ($327 billion).

Personal Life: Marriages, Children, and a Very Public Private Life

Marriages

Musk’s spouses include Justine Wilson (2000–2008) and Talulah Riley (2010–2012; 2013–2016). He has since remained unmarried publicly, though he has remained one of the most discussed figures in celebrity and business culture simultaneously.

14 Children and a Vision for Humanity’s Future

As of early 2025, Elon Musk is the father of 14 children with four different women. Musk, who says he is worried about population collapse, has fathered at least 14 children with four women, including triplets and two sets of twins.

His children and their mothers are:

• With Justine Wilson: Nevada Alexander Musk (deceased, 2002), Vivian Jenna Wilson, Griffin, Kai, Saxon, and Damian Musk
• With Claire Boucher (Grimes): X Æ A-Xii, Exa Dark Sideræl, and Techno Mechanicus Musk
• With Shivon Zilis: Strider, Azure, and Seldon Musk
• With Ashley St. Clair: R.S.C. Musk (born 2025)

Musk’s children include Nevada, Vivian, Griffin, Kai, Saxon, Damian, X Æ A-Xii, Strider, Azure, Exa, Techno, Arcadia, Seldon, and R.S.C.

Company Portfolio at a Glance

Company	Role	Founded	Industry
Tesla	CEO & Product Architect	2003 (joined 2004)	Electric Vehicles / AI
SpaceX	Founder, CEO & Chief Engineer	2002	Aerospace / Starlink
xAI	Founder & CEO	2023	Artificial Intelligence
X (Twitter)	Founder & CTO	Acquired 2022	Social Media
Neuralink	Co-founder	2016	Brain-Computer Interface
The Boring Company	Founder	2016	Infrastructure / Tunneling
Musk Foundation	President	2001	Philanthropy