Elon Musk biography, net worth, nationality, wife, children, house, age 2025

Biography of Elon Musk

Elon Reeve Musk is a Canadian-American entrepreneur, innovator, engineer-inventor, and business magnate investing in grand innovative projects.

The founder and head of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, co-founder of SolarCity and PayPal, this tech messiah, as he's often called in the press, personally participated in the development of new technologies in alternative energy, the design of eco-friendly electric cars, and cost-effective solar power plants.

He worked on creating superhuman-level artificial intelligence with OpenAI, the conceptual high-speed (twice as fast as a plane) transport system Hyperloop, and designing spacecraft aimed at realizing his main goal – creating a human colony on Mars.

The recognized genius of our time possesses personal qualities such as persistence, well-developed critical thinking, precise analysis of events and his own actions, high diligence, and work capacity. It is reliably known that Musk dedicates up to a hundred hours a week to work.

Elon Musk's fortune: $402 billion (as of 2025)

Forbes placed Musk 21st on the list of the world's most influential people, making him one of the youngest individuals in this ranking, second only to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Google creators Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and Uber service inventor Travis Kalanick.

As of February 2022, Elon Musk's fortune was estimated at $402 billion (for comparison, at the beginning of 2022 it was $219 billion, and in 2018 – $20.9 billion).

Childhood and Family

Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, one of South Africa's three capitals. He was the eldest of three children in the family of Errol Musk, an engineer from South Africa, and Maye Musk, a model and dietetics expert of Canadian-British descent.

Elon has a younger brother, Kimbal, born in 1972, and a sister, Tosca, born in 1974. Kimbal, although not as successful as his older brother, made a fortune in the restaurant business, and Tosca became a film producer.

Elon Musk as a Child with His Brother and Sister

After their parents divorced in 1980, Elon and his siblings stayed with their father in a suburb of Pretoria. He rarely saw his mother. Errol owned several houses, a farm with purebred horses, and a yacht.

Little Elon (Right) with His Mother, Brother, and Sister

The family traveled extensively: a trip could start in Europe, then they would fly to Hong Kong, visiting the States along the way. Since Elon's father had a pilot's license, he sometimes rented a plane for work trips, taking the children with him. As a child, Elon visited an emerald mine, where the head of the family helped set up the excavation. In adulthood, Elon also obtained a pilot's license but has no time for this hobby.

In His Youth, Elon Musk (Left) Was a Shy Child

Elon learned to read early and spent most of his free time with books. At the age of three, he startled his father with the question: "Where does the world begin and end?" He grew up as an introvert, avoided peers, and didn't get along well with people. At the private boys' school he attended, he often endured bullying from classmates. Once, he was beaten to the point of unconsciousness and hospitalization.

At the age of nine, Elon received his first computer, a Commodore VIC-20, as a gift. He independently learned popular programming languages of that time and became interested in creating programs. At 12, he wrote a shooter video game called Blastar in BASIC, which he sold for $500 to the publication PC & Office Technologies, which published the code in one of its issues.

A Game Developed by 12-Year-Old Elon Musk

Education

In 1988, Musk graduated from high school and enrolled at the University of Pretoria, but due to political instability in South Africa, he moved to Canada just before his 18th birthday. Since his mother was a Canadian native, Elon also obtained citizenship in this country. This marked the beginning of the most unusual period of his life: Elon entered the undergraduate program at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, while changing numerous jobs across Canada, each with its own story to tell.

Elon Musk during his studies at the university in Canada

Initially, he picked fruits and carried baskets of grain on a farm with his relatives in Waldeck, then worked as a lumberjack in Vancouver. He earned a pittance for cutting logs with a chainsaw. After quitting, he registered with the employment office and requested a job with better pay, which led to a position as a boiler room cleaner at a sawmill. For $18 an hour (which was actually good money in 1989), he crawled on the floor in a suit made of heat-resistant but toxic material, cleaning debris in extremely high temperatures.

During this time, his younger brother also moved to Canada. Teaming up, Elon and Kimbal aimed to forge useful connections. By any means necessary, they found the phone numbers of successful entrepreneurs and called them, inviting them to lunch. One who accepted was Peter Nicholson, head of the Bank of Nova Scotia. Impressed by the young men's persistence, he met them in person and decided to mentor Elon, the more gifted of the Musk brothers. Elon worked at his bank for an entire summer, earning less than in the boiler room – $14 an hour.

Elon Musk and his brother Kimbal at the beginning of their road to great success

In 1992, Musk transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, located in Philadelphia, USA. He studied simultaneously at the College of Arts and Sciences and the Wharton School of Business at the university. Spending a year longer in the university than regular students, in May 1997, he received two bachelor's degrees: in physics and economics. While studying at the University of Pennsylvania, Musk befriended Adeo Ressi, the future founder of TheFunded. The friends rented a ten-bedroom house and turned it into an underground nightclub, which became very popular among students. While everyone got drunk, Musk stayed sober to maintain order. In just one night, he could earn enough money to cover the monthly rent of this giant mansion. The rest he spent on college tuition.

Musk enrolled in Stanford graduate school but turned down a place after 2 days

In 1995, 24-year-old Elon moved to California, where he became a graduate student at the legendary Stanford University to pursus. He had many ambitious ideas in IT, renewable energy, and space exploration.e a Ph.D. in physics. But after just 2 days, he changed his mind and decided to continue working on his project

First Business Ventures

In 1995, in partnership with his brother Kimbal and business coach Greg Kouri, Elon founded his first company, Zip2, a "Yellow Pages" format website specializing in maps and directories for online publications. The initial capital of $28,000 was offered by his father, but Elon refused to take it. Musk worked from early morning until late at night and lived in a rented office to save on housing costs and invest all the money into the company.

His persistence and determination paid off handsomely. The internet was experiencing a boom at the time, and in 1999 the brothers sold their startup for $307 million in cash (and $34 million in securities) to the search engine AltaVista, which was later acquired by Compaq. Elon, who owned only 7% of the company at that point, earned $22 million from the sale.

1999: Young Elon Musk became a dollar millionaire

Musk invested $12 million of this amount in the online bank X.com, believing that electronic payment systems were the future. In 2001, X.com merged with the competing company Confinity. The new enterprise was named PayPal. As the majority shareholder (and taking advantage of a conflict in the Board of Directors after the merger), Elon Musk took the position of CEO of PayPal.

Elon Musk was one of the founders of PayPal

In 2002, against Musk's advice, the Board of Directors approved the sale of PayPal to the trading giant eBay for $1.5 billion. After taxes, Musk received $180 million. Now he had enough funds to pursue his plans for solar energy and space.

Establishment of SpaceX

Back in 2001, Musk developed a project for creating an experimental greenhouse on Mars, which would initiate a closed and self-sustaining ecosystem on the regolith, potentially aiding in the colonization of the Red Planet. He hoped to reignite public interest in the space industry, which had significantly declined after the dissolution of the USSR and the end of the space race between the two superpowers.

In October 2001, along with Adeo Ressi and space equipment engineer Jim Cantrell, Musk traveled to Moscow. The goal of the trip was to purchase refurbished intercontinental ballistic missiles "Dnepr," which he needed for experiments in delivering cargo to space. They met with aircraft designer Semyon Lavochkin and the management of Kosmotras, the company that developed these "Dneprs." However, the purchase fell through Elon was refused the missiles, deemed insufficiently experienced in this matter. The second attempt also failedю Six months later, Musk tried to buy the missiles again, and he was allowed to buy one for $8 million.

Evolution of SpaceX Rockets (2002-2023)

The price seemed unreasonable to Elon. He refused, and during the flight home, the inventor had an idea: he could establish a company that would provide him with similar or even better rockets. Calculations showed that the production cost of one rocket would be only 3% of the price requested by Kosmotras. Additionally, he intended to reduce the cost of each launch by 70% using reusable carriers.

In May 2002, the company Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX for short, was founded. Musk invested $100 million in the enterprise and then attracted significant investments from the US Department of Defense agency DARPA, and companies like SpaceDev, Celestis, ATSB, among others. The first two models of launch vehicles were the light carrier Falcon-1 and the medium-lift carrier Falcon-9. The name refers to the "Millennium Falcon," Han Solo's ship from "Star Wars." The first spacecraft developed by Musk's company was called Dragon.

In 2006, NASA signed a $1.6 billion contract with SpaceX for the delivery of 12 cargo missions to the ISS. In September 2008, for the first time in history, a privately funded launch vehicle successfully delivered cargo into Earth's orbit. This was Falcon-1. Elon had risked nearly everything – if the launch had failed, the company would likely have ceased to exist. On June 4, 2010, Falcon-9 was successfully launched.

On May 25, 2012, Dragon, launched into space by the Falcon-9 launch vehicle, docked with the ISS for the first time. That same year, Musk's company received its first commercial order: the launch of the Intelsat satellite using the still-in-development Falcon Heavy rocket.

On December 22, 2015, Falcon-9 made its first vertical landing on a landing pad at Cape Canaveral. Before this, the rocket had twice fallen into the Atlantic Ocean, but the third attempt was successful and marked a new milestone in space exploration – the reuse of the carrier meant significant cost savings.

Elon Musk Celebrated the Falcon Heavy Launch

In February 2018, SpaceX achieved another breakthrough: the Falcon Heavy rocket, designed for transporting heavy cargo (capable of carrying more than 60 tons to Earth's orbit), launched a Tesla Roadster into space with a camera capturing everything outside the cabin.

The launch was successful, but upon landing, the central of the three boosters failed to reduce speed and crashed into the ocean. The two side boosters landed exactly at their designated location.

Other Projects of Elon Musk

In July 2003, Musk invested in Tesla Motors, a company newly founded by inventors Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, positioned as a pioneer among mass-produced electric car manufacturers.

Musk's official salary at Tesla is one dollar a year

Musk personally participated in the development of the Tesla Roadster sports electric car based on the British Lotus Elise. The inventor significantly minimized the model's weight, improved the battery compartment, and introduced new design elements in the headlight construction. For this work, Elon received the Global Green-2006 award in ecology and found investors who invested $100 million in Tesla.

The same Tesla Roadster is now plowing through space

Despite business development challenges and miscalculations that forced Elon to lay off some employees, the company avoided bankruptcy thanks to a $50 million investment from the German automotive corporation Daimler, as well as a preferential loan provided to Tesla by the US Department of Energy.

Supercut: Tesla Semi Truck/Roadster 2.0 event in less than 9 minutes

Tesla's success spurred the "electric segment" of the automotive market: every respectable car company began developing its own electric car or at least a hybrid. In 2010, Tesla became the first American car company in over 50 years to go public (the previous one was Ford in 1956).

The financial success of the enterprise was boosted by the release of the premium sedan Model S. The public's interest in the billionaire's development was provoked by his debates with a New York Times correspondent. He claimed that in 20 years, more than 50% of cars coming off the production line would be equipped with electric engines. As a result, just in the first half of 2013, 10,500 Tesla Model S cars were sold.

When Henry Ford made cheap, reliable cars, people said, 'No, thanks. What's wrong with a horse?' Ford took a big risk and it worked.

The successful entrepreneur is also engaged in the development of charging stations for electric vehicles, a project conducted under the aegis of SolarCity, founded by his cousins.

Elon Musk is working on solar panels of the future

The enterprise specializes in installing solar power stations for both industrial and home use. These include platforms for charging Tesla cars and home stations for converting solar energy. By early 2018, SolarCity's capitalization was estimated at $3 billion.

In August 2013, Musk unveiled a plan to create the grand transport network Hyperloop. The project proposed an entirely new type of transportation that would be twice as fast as a plane, powered by solar energy, and not tied to a specific schedule, departing at short intervals like metro trains.

Hyperloop envisioned an enclosed elevated highway consisting of two parallel tubes with giant solar panels along the route. It was promised that the route would connect San Francisco and Los Angeles, a distance of 560 km. Musk promised that his invention would cover this route in 35 minutes, and estimated the project cost at $6 billion.

However, Musk did not intend to personally implement Hyperloop (although later SpaceX and Tesla jointly created a capsule that demonstrated a speed of 355 km/h). Eventually, further developments were undertaken by Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, operating through volunteer engineers and crowdfunding, as well as Virgin Hyperloop One. The latter conducted tests of a vacuum capsule model in December 2017, which accelerated to 387 km/h.

The millionaire inventor has repeatedly called for public control of research in the field of artificial intelligence and neural networks. He is convinced that AI poses a threat to humanity, as machines will eventually gain too much power over humans.

Being a house cat for machines – that's the future of humanity.

Nevertheless, in 2016, Elon founded the neurotechnology company Neuralink. It was planned that its employees would work on treating brain diseases (in the short term) using neural interfaces and "enhancing humans" by creating a connection between the brain and computers. Musk promised to create the so-called "neural lace" by 2027 – micro-implants enhancing cognitive abilities.

Elon Musk in Movies

Like many famous billionaires (remember Donald Trump's appearance in "Home Alone"), Elon Musk sometimes appears in popular TV projects, even in those where he's poked fun at.

The founder of SpaceX appeared in the animated series "The Simpsons" (episode "The Musk Who Fell to Earth") and "South Park" (episode "Handicar"), as well as in the action movie "Machete Kills" with Danny Trejo.

He also made a cameo in the second part of "Iron Man" with Robert Downey Jr. (in fact, Elon is often called the prototype of the film's main character, inventor Tony Stark). He appeared as himself in the series "The Big Bang Theory" and its prequel "Young Sheldon." In one episode of the latter, the creation of the "reusable" Falcon rocket is humorously played out.

Elon Musk On The Big Bang Theory

The businessman, who aims to usher in an era of accessible space tourism, owned a Czech-made Aero L-39 jet trainer. He later acquired a Dassault Falcon 900, which was used in 2005 during the filming of "Thank You for Smoking." The millionaire not only produced this film but also played a cameo role as a pilot opening the door for the captain played by the famous Robert Duvall. Musk also owned the Wet Nellie car-submarine (created from the Lotus Esprit in the James Bond film "The Spy Who Loved Me").

Elon's sister is also involved in filmmaking – she owns the film company Musk Entertainment.

2020s

Elon Musk's main goal remains the creation of a human colony on Mars. In a 2011 interview, he stated that the first settlers would go to the Red Planet within the next two decades. By 2040, Musk predicts 80,000 people will live on Mars.

Work continues on the BFR – Big Falcon Rocket – a launch vehicle and spacecraft with a payload of 150 tons. It is expected that the BFR will replace previous generations of Falcon and become the main tool for transporting cargo and people to Mars.

On May 30, 2020, the historic launch of the crewed spacecraft Crew Dragon took place. The spacecraft, as well as the accompanying equipment, were created at Space X. After 19 hours, on May 31, Crew Dragon (also known as Dragon 2) docked with the ISS, delivering astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the station.

NASA SpaceX Crew Dragon Launch

The launch is called historic because it was the first time a spacecraft was launched by a private company. This opens up prospects for space tourism: Crew Dragon can accommodate 7 people. The second launch took place in November of the same year.

In 2021, Elon Musk topped the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, displacing Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Over 2020, the entrepreneur's fortune increased to $199.9 billion due to the rising value of SpaceX shares. By March 2022, his fortune reached $219 billion. Forbes named him the richest person in the world. In April of the same year, he acquired the social network Twitter for $44 billion.

Elon Musk's Personal Life

The billionaire and philanthropist, who donated $10 million for research on controlling artificial intelligence, has been married twice.

Elon Musk and his wife Justine in their youth

He met his first wife, Justine Wilson, while studying at a Canadian university. She is a year older than Musk – perhaps that's why he didn't make much of an impression on her at first, but he managed to earn it later. After graduating from university, their paths diverged for a while, but in 2000 the couple got married.

In 2002, they had a son, Nevada Alexander Musk, who died of sudden infant death syndrome at 10 weeks. After this, Elon withdrew into himself for a while. In 2004, the couple tried to have children via IVF. As a result, twins Griffin and Damian were born. In 2006, Justine became a mother again – again through the IVF procedure. This time, the family welcomed triplets Xavier, Saxon, and Kai.

Elon Musk spends 4 days a week with his children

Over time, family relations began to deteriorate. The entrepreneur spent a lot of time at work and little with his family. In 2008, Justine filed for divorce. The former spouses maintain a relationship and co-parent their children.

The billionaire has often lamented the lack of time for women: 'I can allocate 5-10 hours a week for a woman... Is 10 hours of attention enough? Will that be sufficient for a woman?'.

The businessman remarried in September 2010. His chosen one was English actress Talulah Riley, with whom he started dating shortly after his divorce. The press attributed the role of a 'cunning beauty' to this girl, who allegedly took the businessman away from his family. But their love story was not smooth.

Elon Musk's second wife is Talulah Riley

A year and a half after the wedding, Musk filed for divorce from Talulah. In the summer of 2013, they remarried, giving their relationship a second chance. In December 2014, Elon divorced his wife again, only to annul his decision six months later. Finally, in March 2016, the couple decided to separate for good 'by mutual consent'.

Elon dated actress Amber Heard for about a year, who had just gone through a difficult divorce process with Johnny Depp. In August 2017, they broke up.

Elon Musk and Amber Heard dated for about a year

"Amber constantly lied to Elon. She said she spent the night at home when she was actually partying at a club. When she went to shoot in Australia, she acted as if she didn't have a boyfriend. But she didn't hesitate to use Elon's credit card while shopping," claimed a source close to the billionaire to Metro.

In May 2018, Musk appeared in public with a new partner – 30-year-old singer Grimes (real name Claire Boucher). They attended the annual Met Gala in New York together. The couple met online: Musk wanted to tweet the phrase "Rococo Basilisk," combining the name of a thought experiment about virtual reality "Roko's Basilisk" and the architectural style rococo, but it turned out Grimes had already used it in one of her videos. They started communicating, and then users noticed Musk's strange comments on Grimes' Twitter (about comets actually being made of cocaine).

In May 2020, Grimes gave birth to a child with Elon. The boy was given the unusual name X Æ A-12 (pronounced "Ex Ash A-Twelve"). The idea belonged to Grimes, but A-12 is a nod to Musk's favorite model of fighter jet. The X in Elon's son's name has its standard algebraic meaning – an unknown variable. Æ, according to the engineer, is an abbreviation for Artificial Intellect in an elvish dialect.

In September 2021, Musk revealed that he and Grimes had separated after three years together, but they still have a great relationship and see each other regularly.

In March 2022, Grimes gave an interview to Vanity Fair, in which she revealed they had a second child together – a daughter named Exa Dark Sideræl, carried by a surrogate mother. Just a few hours after the article was published, Grimes confirmed that she and Elon had parted ways:

I would probably refer to him as my boyfriend, but we have very fluid relationships. We live in separate houses. We are best friends. We see each other all the time... We just have our own thing going on, and I don’t expect others to understand.

A few weeks before the birth of the daughter with Grimes, Musk had twins with Shivon Zilis, the head of his company Neuralink. However, the status of their relationship was not entirely clear – they never declared themselves a couple, despite Shivon Zilis giving Musk another child in the summer of 2024.

Elon Musk and Shivon Zilis are sitting in chairs on the porch, each holding a baby — Elon Musk, Shivon Zilis, and their children

In September 2023, it became known that Musk and Grimes have another child together – a son named Tau Techno Mechanicus. The exact date of his birth is unknown. This fact became known after the release of Walter Isaacson's book "Elon Musk," which thoroughly examined the billionaire's biography.

On February 15, 2025, it was announced that Musk had another son (and his thirteenth child). The news was revealed by the child's mother, 26-year-old conservative activist Ashley St. Clair, five months after the baby was born.

Full-length girl with long black hair, wearing a fitted black dress — Ashley St. Clair

Elon Musk's typical workweek is structured as follows. On Monday, he wakes up at his mansion in Bel-Air (a posh neighborhood of Los Angeles) and heads to the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne. He spends the night at the workplace, and on Tuesday, he flies by private jet to Palo Alto – the heart of Silicon Valley, where Tesla's headquarters is located. On Thursday, Musk returns to Los Angeles to inspect SpaceX. Meanwhile, he spends time with his sons at least four times a week.

The entrepreneur has established a charitable foundation in his name. He donates part of his wealth to address the aftermath of natural disasters (a hurricane in Alabama, a tsunami in the Japanese city of Soma).

Elon Musk Now

On October 6, 2024, Elon Musk spoke at a rally in Pennsylvania in support of Donald Trump, who was running for a second term. Although the billionaire publicly supported Trump for the first time, stating that "Trump must win," his relationship with him began back in 2016 when Musk and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick became advisors to the presidential office on business matters.

Elon Musk jumps on stage as Donald Trump speaks from the podium — Elon Musk at a rally in support of Trump in Pennsylvania

In the 2020 election, Musk supported Democratic candidate Joe Biden. However, by 2022, he became disillusioned with the Democratic Party. He often engaged in public disputes with party representatives, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who criticized his policy regarding the former "Twitter," and Senator Elizabeth Warren, who accused him of tax evasion.

In May 2022, Musk announced his intention to vote for Republicans. In October 2024, he donated 75 million dollars to his own America PAC committee, which supported Trump.

After Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2025, Elon Musk was appointed chairman of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE - an abbreviation referencing the meme coin Dogcoin). In this position, he initiated a series of reforms aimed at optimizing the work of government institutions. One of the first steps was freezing the activities of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which led to the cessation of funding for hundreds of projects worldwide.

Additionally, under Musk's leadership, DOGE gained access to the U.S. Treasury Department's government payment system, which processes all government transactions.

Elon Musk: latest news and articles

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8 Aug 2022

Anne Gair

Maria Brewer, It would be interesting to be one of that group!!!

2022-11-15 00:38:36
John Wise

I watched an interview with Elon Musk`s mother. Now I understand why he grew up so tough. He has an example and upbringing at a height

2021-05-16 15:35:28
Maria Brewer

Interestingly, and when all the same will fly into space? Elon Musk wanted to send a small group to live on Mars. It would be interesting to see this.

2021-05-14 13:54:46
Jonathan Jones

The future belongs to Elon Musk, one hundred percent. Well, for his followers, just as smart

2021-05-07 21:51:16
Rosa Stewart

I have long dreamed of a Tesla car! Musk is certainly a genius of technology!

2021-04-28 23:15:36
Rodney Rice

Haha, I love Elon Musk. Brainy, so also with a subtle humor guy.

2021-04-04 12:15:44

Elon Musk

Photos: Elon Musk