Elon Musk: Biography
Biography born 28 June 1971
South African/Canadian/American business magnate, engineer, and inventor. He is currently the CEO & CTO of SpaceX and CEO & Chief Product Architect of Tesla Motors.
Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa to a Canadian mother and a South African father.
Elon taught himself computer programming and at age 12 sold the computer code for a video game called Blastar for $500.
TIMELINE
1983
At the age of 12, designs a videogame called Blast Star and sells it to a computer magazine for $500.
1995
After spending two days in a graduate physics program at Stanford, drops out to start Zip2, an online publishing platform for the media industry.
1999
Sells Zip2 to Compaq for $307 million.
2000
Forms Pay Pal by merging his new online-payments startup, X.com, with Max Levchin and Peter Thiel’s Confinity.
2001
Establishes the Musk Foundation to provide grants for renewable energy, space, and medical research as well as science and engineering education.
2002
PayPal goes public; its stock rises more than 54 percent on the first day of trading. Eight months later, eBay acquires PayPal for $1.5 billion. Musk founds SpaceX.
2004
Invests in Tesla Motors, a company that manufactures high-performance electric cars.
2006
Helps create SolarCity, which provides solarpower systems to some 33,000 buildings. Will serve as the company chair.
2008
NASA selects the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle and the reusable Dragon spacecraft to deliver cargo to the International Space Station after the space shuttles retire.
2010
Makes a cameo appearance in Iron Man 2. Director Jon Favreau cites Musk as an inspiration for Tony Stark.
2012
SpaceX’s Dragon becomes the first commercial spacecraft to berth with the ISS .
Inventions
Elon Musk is best known for being the co-founder of PayPal, a money-transfer service for Web consumers, for founding Space Exploration Technologies or SpaceX, the first private company to launch a rocket into
South African/Canadian/American business magnate, engineer, and inventor. He is currently the CEO & CTO of SpaceX and CEO & Chief Product Architect of Tesla Motors.
Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa to a Canadian mother and a South African father.
Elon taught himself computer programming and at age 12 sold the computer code for a video game called Blastar for $500.
TIMELINE
1983
At the age of 12, designs a videogame called Blast Star and sells it to a computer magazine for $500.
1995
After spending two days in a graduate physics program at Stanford, drops out to start Zip2, an online publishing platform for the media industry.
1999
Sells Zip2 to Compaq for $307 million.
2000
Forms Pay Pal by merging his new online-payments startup, X.com, with Max Levchin and Peter Thiel’s Confinity.
2001
Establishes the Musk Foundation to provide grants for renewable energy, space, and medical research as well as science and engineering education.
2002
PayPal goes public; its stock rises more than 54 percent on the first day of trading. Eight months later, eBay acquires PayPal for $1.5 billion. Musk founds SpaceX.
2004
Invests in Tesla Motors, a company that manufactures high-performance electric cars.
2006
Helps create SolarCity, which provides solarpower systems to some 33,000 buildings. Will serve as the company chair.
2008
NASA selects the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle and the reusable Dragon spacecraft to deliver cargo to the International Space Station after the space shuttles retire.
2010
Makes a cameo appearance in Iron Man 2. Director Jon Favreau cites Musk as an inspiration for Tony Stark.
2012
SpaceX’s Dragon becomes the first commercial spacecraft to berth with the ISS .
Inventions
Elon Musk is best known for being the co-founder of PayPal, a money-transfer service for Web consumers, for founding Space Exploration Technologies or SpaceX, the first private company to launch a rocket into