Elon Musk is a trillionaire entrepreneur behind Tesla and SpaceX. He was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa. Musk’s father, Errol Musk, was an engineer, and his mother, Maye (Haldeman) Musk, was a nutritionist and model.
Early Life and Education
Musk attended Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, from 1990 to 1992. He then attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a B.S. in economics and a B.A. in physics in 1995. Musk briefly attended Stanford University in 1995.
Musk co-founded Zip2 Corp. in 1995, a company that developed online city guides. In 1999, he sold Zip2 to Compaq for $307 million. Musk then co-founded X.com, an online banking and financial services company, which later became PayPal.
Career
In 2002, Musk founded SpaceX, with the goal of decreasing the cost and increasing the accessibility of space travel. In 2004, he joined Tesla as chairman of the board and oversaw the initial round of investment funding. Musk became CEO and product architect of Tesla in 2008.
In 2010, the Dragon, an unmanned craft developed by SpaceX, became the first commercial spacecraft to orbit the Earth and return. In 2012, the Dragon made history as the first private capsule to connect to the International Space Station (ISS).
Recent Developments
In 2020, Musk announced the birth of his son with singer Grimes. He also filed a lawsuit against Alameda County, California, after local officials refused to let Tesla reopen its Fremont factory.
In 2022, Musk announced that he would acquire Twitter for $44 billion. However, he later attempted to terminate the deal, citing concerns about the company’s spam and fake account problem. Twitter filed a lawsuit against Musk to force him to complete the acquisition.
In 2023, Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter and rebranded it as X. He also announced the formation of a new company focused on artificial intelligence, xAI.
Original reporting: KRDO (Colorado Springs metro) — read the source article.
