Biography of Elon Musk
Elon Reeve Musk is a Canadian-American entrepreneur, innovator, engineer-inventor, and business magnate who invests in groundbreaking innovative projects.The founder and head of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, co-founder of SolarCity and PayPal, this tech visionary, as he's often called in the press, has personally spearheaded the development of cutting-edge technologies in alternative energy, the design of eco-friendly electric cars, and affordable solar power systems.

This recognized genius of our time brings together persistence, sharp critical thinking, precise analysis of events and his own actions, incredible diligence, and an unmatched work ethic. Musk famously dedicates up to 100 hours a week to his work.

As of February 2022, Elon Musk's fortune reached an estimated $402 billion (compared to $219 billion at the start of 2022, and just $20.9 billion in 2018).
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 born to Errol Musk, a South African engineer, and Maye Musk, a Canadian-British model and nutrition expert.




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 Canadian, Elon also obtained citizenship there. 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 juggling numerous jobs across Canada, each with its own story.
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 tracked down the phone numbers of successful entrepreneurs and cold-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 Musk brother. Elon worked at his bank for an entire summer, earning less than in the boiler room – $14 an hour.


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.


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 wanted to rekindle public fascination with space exploration, which had seriously tanked after the Soviet Union collapsed and the superpower space race ended.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 failed. Six months later, Musk tried again and was offered one missile for $8 million.




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 startup founded by inventors Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning that was positioning itself as a pioneer in mass-produced electric vehicles.

The company's financial success got a major boost from the launch of its premium Model S sedan. Public interest in the billionaire's project was sparked by his heated exchanges with a New York Times reporter. He predicted that within 20 years, over 50% of new cars would run on electric power. As a result, just in the first half of 2013, 10,500 Tesla Model S cars were sold.
The entrepreneur is also developing charging stations for electric vehicles through SolarCity, a company founded by his cousins.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.

In August 2013, Musk unveiled his plan for Hyperloop, a revolutionary transportation network. The project proposed a completely new form of transport that would be twice as fast as airplanes, solar-powered, and running on flexible schedules with frequent departures like subway trains.

Musk didn't plan to personally develop Hyperloop himself (though SpaceX and Tesla later teamed up to create a capsule that hit speeds of 355 km/h). Instead, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies took over development, working with volunteer engineers and crowdfunding, alongside Virgin Hyperloop One. The latter conducted tests of a vacuum capsule model in December 2017, which accelerated to 387 km/h.
The billionaire inventor has repeatedly pushed for public oversight of AI and neural network research. He's convinced AI threatens humanity, believing machines will eventually overpower humans.
Nevertheless, in 2016, Elon founded the neurotechnology company Neuralink. The plan was for employees to work on treating brain diseases short-term using neural interfaces, while "enhancing humans" by connecting brains to computers. Musk promised to develop "neural lace" by 2027 – tiny implants that boost cognitive abilities.Being a house cat for machines – that's the future of humanity.
Elon Musk in Movies
Like other famous billionaires (remember Donald Trump's "Home Alone" cameo), Musk occasionally pops up in TV shows, even ones that poke fun at him.


2020s
Elon Musk's ultimate vision remains creating a human colony on Mars. In a 2011 interview, he predicted the first settlers would reach the Red Planet within 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 capable of carrying 150 tons. The BFR is expected to replace previous Falcon generations and become the primary vehicle for transporting cargo and people to Mars.
On May 30, 2020, the historic launch of the crewed spacecraft Crew Dragon took place. SpaceX built both the spacecraft and its accompanying equipment. 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.
In 2021, Elon Musk topped the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, displacing Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Throughout 2020, the entrepreneur's fortune grew to $199.9 billion thanks to rising SpaceX share values. 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 AI research, has been married twice.


The businessman remarried in September 2010. He chose English actress Talulah Riley, whom he started dating shortly after his divorce. The press painted her as a 'cunning beauty' who allegedly stole the businessman away from his family. But their romance was anything but smooth.The billionaire has often complained about his lack of time for relationships: 'I can allocate 5-10 hours a week for a woman... Is 10 hours of attention enough? Will that be sufficient for a woman?'.

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

In May 2018, Musk appeared in public with a new partner – 30-year-old singer Grimes (real name Claire Boucher). They made their debut together at the annual Met Gala in New York. The couple's origin story is pure internet: Musk wanted to tweet "Rococo Basilisk" – a mashup of the virtual reality thought experiment "Roko's Basilisk" and the rococo architectural style – only to discover Grimes had already used the phrase in one of her videos. They started talking, and Twitter users soon spotted Musk's bizarre comments on Grimes' posts – including his theory that comets are actually made of cocaine.

In September 2021, Musk announced that he and Grimes had split after three years, though they maintained they were still close and saw each other frequently.
In March 2022, Grimes dropped a bombshell in a Vanity Fair interview: she and Musk had welcomed a second child via surrogate – a daughter named Exa Dark Sideræl. Hours after the article went live, Grimes clarified their relationship status:
Just weeks before his daughter with Grimes was born, Musk had welcomed twins with Shivon Zilis, Neuralink's director of operations. The nature of their relationship remained murky – they never publicly confirmed being a couple, even after Zilis had another child with Musk in summer 2024.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.

On February 15, 2025, news broke that Musk had welcomed another son—his thirteenth child. The announcement came from the child's mother, 26-year-old conservative activist Ashley St. Clair, five months after the baby's birth.


Elon Musk Now
On October 6, 2024, Elon Musk took the stage at a Pennsylvania rally, throwing his support behind Donald Trump's bid for a second term. While this marked the billionaire's first public Trump endorsement—declaring "Trump must win"—their relationship actually dates back to 2016, when Musk and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick served as business advisors to the presidential office.
By May 2022, Musk announced he'd be voting Republican. In October 2024, he poured $75 million into his own America PAC committee backing 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 role, he's launched sweeping reforms designed to streamline government operations. One of his first moves was freezing operations at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), cutting funding to hundreds of projects worldwide.
Under Musk's direction, DOGE also secured access to the U.S. Treasury Department's payment system that handles all government transactions.