Elon Musk

His father Errol was an electromechanical engineer, pilot and emerald dealer in Pretoria, his mother Maye a Canadian-born model and dietitian, and the family had money. His parents divorced in 1979 and at about nine he chose to live with his father, who had an Encyclopaedia Britannica set and a computer. He has described a wilderness camp as a paramilitary Lord of the Flies where bullying was a virtue, and an incident in which other boys threw him down concrete steps and put him in hospital. He taught himself to program from a VIC-20 manual and at twelve sold a game called Blastar for about 500 dollars. He applied for a Canadian passport through his mother rather than serve in the apartheid military, and landed in Canada in June 1989.

Queen's University in 1990, the University of Pennsylvania after that, and a Stanford graduate place in materials science in 1995 he never took up. Zip2, founded that year with his brother Kimbal and Greg Kouri, went to Compaq for 307 million dollars in February 1999, his 7 percent share paying 22 million. X.com followed, its investors removed him as chief executive inside a year, and its merger with Confinity produced PayPal, which eBay bought in 2002. He founded SpaceX the same year and became an American citizen. He led Tesla's Series A in 2004 with 6.35 million dollars and took the chief executive's chair in 2008. Tesla passed a trillion dollars in market value in October 2021. Neuralink came in 2016, the Boring Company in 2017, OpenAI in 2015 and xAI after he left it, and Twitter in 2022.

Trump made him a special government employee in January 2025 and he ran the Department of Government Efficiency. The White House swore in court that he held no formal authority to make government decisions. A federal judge found he was its de facto head. He left on May 28, 2025, when the 130-day limit expired. Boston University modelling put the toll of the USAID cuts at 400,000 children and 200,000 adults dead by November, and Bill Gates accused him of killing the world's poorest children. At the inauguration he twice made a gesture many read as a fascist salute — the Anti-Defamation League said it was not one, other Jewish organizations disagreed, and he called the accusations dirty tricks. His eldest daughter took her mother's surname in 2022, saying she no longer wished to be associated with him.

He has been the wealthiest person alive since 2025 and in June 2026 became the first valued above a trillion dollars, though Forbes put him at 744 billion on July 23, 2026, a number that moves weekly. Tesla shareholders approved a pay package in November 2025 worth up to a trillion over ten years, tied to milestones including an 8.5 trillion dollar market capitalization. None of this is settled. Reusable orbital boosters and mass-market electric cars exist, and his companies built them. He was also the largest donor of the 2024 election and has boosted far-right parties in at least 18 countries on six continents, by NBC News's count. The argument about him is being had now, not later.

Elon Musk's life against the full span of the corpus — the fading end marks a life still in progress.

• Zip2 company
  An internet city guide for newspapers. Compaq paid 307 million dollars for it. 1995
• X.com company
  One of the first federally insured online banks. It merged into PayPal. 1999
• SpaceX company
  Reusable orbital boosters, commercial spaceflight and Starlink 2002
• Tesla company
  He led the Series A in 2004 and became chief executive and product architect in 2008 2008
• Neuralink company
  Implanted neural interfaces 2016
• xAI company
  Built after he left OpenAI. It became a SpaceX subsidiary in 2026. 2023

• 1983 aged ~12 Sells a game called Blastar to a magazine for about 500 dollars He was twelve and had taught himself to program from a VIC-20 manual.
• June 1989 aged 17 Arrives in Canada on a passport claimed through his mother The application let him avoid South Africa's military service.
• February 1999 aged 27 Compaq buys Zip2 and his 7 percent share pays 22 million dollars
• 2002 aged ~31 Founds SpaceX and becomes an American citizen eBay bought PayPal the same year.
• 2004 aged ~33 Leads Tesla's Series A with 6.35 million dollars and joins the board He became chief executive in 2008.
• October 2022 aged 51 Buys Twitter and renames it X the following year
• January 20, 2025 aged 53 Becomes senior advisor to the president for government efficiency A federal judge later found he was the de facto head of DOGE.
• May 28, 2025 aged 53 Leaves the administration as the 130-day limit expires A public feud with Trump began the following week.
• June 2026 aged 54 Becomes the first person valued above a trillion dollars Tesla shareholders had approved a pay package of that size in November 2025.

• Donald Trump b. 1946
  Businessman, media personality, and 45th and 47th president whose populist movement transformed American politics. served under, then feuded with
• Peter Thiel b. 1967
  PayPal co-founder and first outside investor in Facebook whose contrarian views shaped Silicon Valley culture. merged companies with
• Sam Altman b. 1985
  Technology executive and investor whose leadership in generative artificial intelligence has had major but still-unsettled historical consequences. co-founded OpenAI with
• Jeff Bezos b. 1964
  Founder of Amazon who transformed e-commerce and cloud computing, becoming one of the wealthiest people in history. rival in orbital launch
• Nikola Tesla 1856–1943
  Serbian-American inventor who developed alternating current electrical systems and numerous electrical innovations. named the company for him
• Henry Ford 1863–1947
  Industrialist who revolutionized manufacturing with the assembly line and made automobiles affordable. the mass-production precedent