Elon Musk (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa) is a South African-born American entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment firm PayPal and formed SpaceX, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He also served as Tesla's chief executive officer and was one of the company's initial significant investors. In addition, Musk acquired Twitter (later X) in 2022. Musk leads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in U.S. Pres. The second administration of Donald Trump. Musk is the world’s richest person, with a net worth of $393 billion, as of 2025.
Early years
Musk was born to a Canadian mother and a South African father. He displayed an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. He developed a video game and sold it to a computer magazine when he was 12 years old. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he was unwilling to support apartheid through compulsory military service and because he sought the greater economic opportunities available in the United States.
PayPal and SpaceX
Musk received his undergraduate degrees in physics and economics from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 1997 after transferring from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, in 1992. He applied to Stanford University in California to attend graduate school in physics, but he dropped out after just two days because he thought the Internet had more potential to change society than physics. He established Zip2, which provided online newspapers with business directories and maps, in 1995. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services company, X.com, which later became PayPal, which specialized in transferring money online. PayPal was acquired by the online auction site eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion.
Musk had long held the belief that humanity must evolve into a multiplanet species in order for life to continue. However, the high cost of rocket launchers dissatisfied him. To produce rockets at a lower cost, he established Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) in 2002. The Falcon 1 rocket, which was launched for the first time in 2006, and the larger Falcon 9 rocket, which was launched for the first time in 2010, were the company's first two rockets. Both of these rockets were made to be much less expensive than rival rockets. A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first launched in 2018), was designed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its largest competitor, the Boeing Company’s Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. The Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy eventually dominated the launch vehicle market, and in 2024 more than half of the world’s orbital launches were done by SpaceX.
SpaceX has announced the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy–Starship system. The Super Heavy first stage would be capable of lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for providing fast transportation between cities on Earth and building bases on the Moon and Mars.
The Dragon spacecraft, which carries supplies to the International Space Station (ISS), was also developed by SpaceX. Dragon can carry as many as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. The first test flights of the Super Heavy–Starship system launched in 2020. In addition to being CEO of SpaceX, Musk was also chief designer for the Dragon, Starship, and Falcon rockets. As part of NASA's Artemis space program,
SpaceX is contracted to construct the lander for the astronauts returning to the Moon by 2026. The Starlink satellite network, which provides Internet service, was also developed by SpaceX. As of 2025 there are about 7,000 working Starlink satellites, accounting for more than half of all active satellites. Starlink is a megaconstellation, or satellite Internet constellation, with more than three million subscribers as of 2024.
Tesla
Musk had been interested in the potential of electric cars for a long time, and in 2004, he became one of the major investors in Tesla Motors, which was later renamed Tesla. Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, two businessmen, had started the electric car company. The Roadster, Tesla's first vehicle, was released in 2006; it could travel 394 kilometers (245 miles) on a single charge. It was a sports car that could go from 0 to 60 miles (97 kilometers) per hour in less than four seconds, in contrast to the majority of previous electric vehicles, which Musk thought were boring and uninteresting. In 2010 the company’s initial public offering raised about $226 million. Two years later, Tesla introduced the Model S sedan, which was praised for its performance and design by automotive critics. With the introduction of its Model X luxury SUV in 2015, the business received additional praise. The Model 3, a less-expensive vehicle, went into production in 2017 and became the best-selling electric car of all time.
Tesla announced several models to be released early in the 2020s, including a semitrailer truck (the Tesla Semi) and a pickup truck, the Cybertruck. Although the Cybertruck was slated for production in 2021, supply chain disruptions, design, and production issues pushed its rollout back two years. By the time Tesla began making Cybertruck deliveries in late 2023, it boasted a reservation backlog of two million vehicles, despite the boxy angular design that excited controversy when it was first unveiled.
Dissatisfied with the projected cost ($68 billion) of a high-speed rail system in California, Musk in 2013 proposed an alternate faster system, the Hyperloop, a pneumatic tube in which a pod carrying 28 passengers would travel the 350 miles (560 km) between Los Angeles and San Francisco in 35 minutes at a top speed of 760 miles (1,220 km) per hour, nearly the speed of sound. Musk claimed that the Hyperloop would only cost $6 billion and could accommodate the six million people who travel that route annually with pods departing on average every two minutes. However, he stated, between running SpaceX and Tesla, he could not devote time to the Hyperloop’s development.
X (previously Twitter)
X (formerlyMusk 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 85 million followers as of 2022. He tweeted in August 2018 about taking Tesla private for $420 per share, noting that he had "secured funding," and he expressed reservations about the company's public trading. (The value of $420 was seen as a joking reference to April 20, a day celebrated by devotees of cannabis.) The following month the U.S. Musk was sued for securities fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), who claimed 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. However, a harsher deal was ultimately accepted after the news sent Tesla stock plunging. It stipulated that Musk would be removed from his position as chairman for a period of three years, though he would be permitted to continue as CEO; that Tesla lawyers would have to approve Musk's tweets in advance; and that both Tesla and Musk would be subject to fines of $20 million. Twitter)
Musk was critical of Twitter’s commitment to principles of free speech, in light of the company’s content-moderation policies. Musk had purchased more than 9% of Twitter in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) at the beginning of April 2022. Shortly thereafter, Musk made the announcement that he would not be joining Twitter's board of directors. Instead, Musk offered $44 billion for the entire company at a value of $54.20 per share. Twitter’s board accepted the deal, which would make him sole owner of the company. Musk stated that his plans for the company included “enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans.” In July 2022 Musk announced that he was withdrawing his bid, stating that Twitter had not provided sufficient information about bot accounts and claiming that the company was in “material breach of multiple provisions” of the purchase agreement. Bret Taylor, the chair of Twitter’s board of directors, responded by saying that the company was “committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk.” Twitter sued Musk to force him to buy the company. In September 2022 Twitter’s shareholders voted to accept Musk’s offer. Facing a legal battle, Musk ultimately proceeded with the deal, and it was completed in October.
Musk was critical of Twitter’s commitment to principles of free speech, in light of the company’s content-moderation policies. Musk had purchased more than 9% of Twitter in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) at the beginning of April 2022. Shortly thereafter, Musk made the announcement that he would not be joining Twitter's board of directors. Instead, Musk offered $44 billion for the entire company at a value of $54.20 per share. Twitter’s board accepted the deal, which would make him sole owner of the company. Musk stated that his plans for the company included “enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans.” In July 2022 Musk announced that he was withdrawing his bid, stating that Twitter had not provided sufficient information about bot accounts and claiming that the company was in “material breach of multiple provisions” of the purchase agreement. Bret Taylor, the chair of Twitter’s board of directors, responded by saying that the company was “committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk.” Twitter sued Musk to force him to buy the company. In September 2022 Twitter’s shareholders voted to accept Musk’s offer. Facing a legal battle, Musk ultimately proceeded with the deal, and it was completed in October.
Among Musk’s first acts as Twitter’s owner were to lay off about half the company and to allow users to purchase for $8 a month the blue check-mark verification, which had previously been bestowed by Twitter upon notable figures. In addition, he dissolved the content-moderation body on Twitter and reinstated a number of banned accounts, most notably the account of former US President Donald Trump, which had been suspended following the U.S. Capitol attack on January 6, 2021. As more businesses removed their advertisements from the platform, advertising revenue decreased significantly. In July 2023, Musk changed the company's name from Twitter to X. (With the change, tweets became posts.)
