Elon Musk. Overview and main events

Elon Reeve Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, to Maye Musk, a model and nutritionist, and Errol Musk, an electromechanical engineer. He is the eldest of three children.

Musk moved to Canada at the age of 17 to attend Queen's University, avoiding mandatory military service in South Africa. He later transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned undergraduate degrees in economics and physics. In 1995, he relocated to California to pursue a Ph.D. in energy physics at Stanford University but dropped out after just two days to pursue entrepreneurial ventures.

After dropping out of Stanford, Musk co-founded Zip2 with his brother Kimbal. Zip2 provided online city guides and directories, eventually supplying content to major newspapers like The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune. In 1999, Compaq acquired Zip2 for $307 million.

With the profits from Zip2, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services company that later merged with Confinity to form PayPal. In 2002, eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion, with Musk receiving $165 million.

Using $100 million from the sale of PayPal, Musk founded SpaceX with the ambitious goal of reducing space transportation costs and enabling human colonization of Mars. This marked the beginning of his venture into space exploration.

Musk invested $6.5 million in Tesla Motors, becoming the chairman of the board. He played a crucial role in securing funding and providing strategic direction for the company, which aimed to accelerate the transition to sustainable energy through electric vehicles.

Following a series of conflicts and the financial crisis of 2007-2008, Musk took over as CEO and product architect of Tesla Motors. Under his leadership, Tesla introduced the Roadster, the first electric sports car, and later the Model S, Model X, Model 3, and Model Y.

SpaceX achieved a significant breakthrough by successfully landing the first stage of a Falcon 9 rocket back on Earth, marking a milestone in reusable rocket technology. In the same year, Musk co-founded OpenAI, a nonprofit dedicated to researching artificial intelligence in a responsible and safe manner.

Musk continued to expand his ventures, including the founding of The Boring Company in 2016 and Neuralink in 2017. He also played a key role in the acquisition of SolarCity by Tesla. In 2022, Musk acquired Twitter for $43 billion, aiming to grow the platform's potential.