Elon Musk was born on 28 June 1971, in Pretoria, Transvaal South Africa, to Canadian mother Maye, a dietitian and model, and South African electromechanical engineer Errol Musk. Elon is a noted entrepreneur and businessman, as well as an inventor, best known as the CEO and CTO of such international companies as SpaceX, Tesla Motors and SolarCity.
So just how rich is Elon Musk, as of early 2018? Authoritative sources estimate that his net worth is over $20 billion, accumulated through his several business activities during a career which began in the 1990s, and putting him in the top 50 richest persons in the world
Elon Musk Net Worth $21 Billion
Elon’s parents divorced when he was nine, and he lived with his father for the next 10 years. Musk’s career began when he first started programming at the young age of 10; he created his own software product – a BASIC-based video game he created called Blastar – and made a sale for $500 to PC and Office Technology magazine. When he was 18, Elon Musk moved to Queen’s University campus in Canada to study, but transferred to opted for business and physics at the University of Pennsylvania, but graduated in economics while he continued to studying a bachelor’s program in physics in order to obtain a PhD in energy physics later in life.
However, like several other rich people, he didn’t finish this degree, but instead Elon dropped out and launched his first company called Zip2, a web software company, in 1995 with his brother Kimbal. It was bought from him in 1999 by Compaq Computer for $307 million, plus stock options, of which Elon’s share was $22 million. The same year Elon founded another company called X.com, which specializes in financial services including payments – it later became what is now known as PayPal, which was bought by eBay in 2002 for roughly $1.5 billion in stock options. Obviously, Elon’s net worth was rocketing.
The third company that Elon Musk founded was the already mentioned SpaceX – Space Exploration Technologies Corporation in 2002; Elon had the intention of building a spacecraft purely for commercial reasons, effectively promoting private space travel. NASA signed a contract with Musk’s SpaceX in 2008, which states that NASA plans to transport cargo to the International Space Station.
By 2003 Must had also founded Tesla Motors, with the aim of developing, producing and selling affordable electric vehicles that are meant eventually for the mass-market. There is also a new concept that Elon developed in 2013 for a brand new type of transportation, which is called Hyperloop, and it is intended for travel at faster than 700 miles per hour in tubes between cities, and is already being tested.
In 2015, Elon launched OpenA1, an artificial intelligence (A1) company, basically not-for-profit and for widespread use “that is safe and beneficial to humanity”, as Musk says, aimed at devolving any potential concentration of power
Most recently, SolarCity was acquired by Musk through Tesla, Inc. in 2016, and is currently a wholly owned subsidiary. It was founded in 2006 by Lindon and Peter Rive, and by 2013 was the second largest provider of solar power systems in the US. Elon’s net worth seems sure to continue rising!
In his personal life, Elon Musk was married to Justine Wilson, a Canadian author, from 2000 to 2008; they had six sons, the first died from SIDS at 10 weeks, and subsequent twins and triplets were born through IVF. He was then married to Talulah Riley, firstly from 2010 to 2012, then from 2013 to 2016. Musk next dated Amber Heard, an American actress for a year, but is currently unattached. He is now an American citizen, and resides in Bel Air, California.
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