Elon Musk is a South African-born American entrepreneur who co-founded PayPal, based SpaceX and xAI, and have become an early main investor and later CEO of Tesla. In June 2026, following SpaceX’s IPO, he turned the world’s first trillionaire.
Who Is Elon Musk?
Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa, to a South African father and a Canadian mom. He confirmed an early curiosity in computing, promoting a online game he created to a pc journal at age 12.
In 1988, he left South Africa for Canada, citing his unwillingness to help apartheid via obligatory army service and a want for larger financial alternative.
He attended Queen’s College in Kingston, Ontario, earlier than transferring in 1992 to the College of Pennsylvania, the place he earned a Bachelor of Arts in physics and a Bachelor of Science in economics from the Wharton College, graduating in 1997.
He was accepted right into a physics PhD program at Stanford however left after two days, deciding the web held extra potential to alter society than tutorial analysis.
Musk holds citizenship in South Africa, Canada, and america, and in 2012 joined the Giving Pledge, a dedication by billionaires together with Invoice Gates and Warren Buffett to donate the vast majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes.
His philanthropic automobile, the Musk Basis, established in late 2001, funds grants supporting pediatric analysis, science and engineering schooling, renewable power analysis, and area exploration analysis.
Elon Musk’s Profession and Contributions
In 1995, Musk based Zip2, an organization offering maps and enterprise directories to on-line newspapers, alongside his brother Kimbal Musk. Compaq acquired Zip2 in 1999 for $307 million.
Musk then based X.com, a web based monetary companies firm that later merged with Confinity to turn out to be PayPal, specializing in on-line cash transfers. eBay purchased PayPal in 2002 for $1.5 billion.
In 2002, Musk based SpaceX to develop lower-cost rockets, pushed by his conviction that humanity wanted to turn out to be a multiplanet species.
The Falcon 1 first launched in 2006, adopted by the bigger Falcon 9 in 2010 and the Falcon Heavy in 2018, which may carry almost twice the payload of its largest competitor for a 3rd of the associated fee.
By 2024, SpaceX carried out greater than half of the world’s orbital launches. The corporate’s Dragon spacecraft has carried astronauts and cargo to the Worldwide Area Station since 2020, and SpaceX is creating the Tremendous Heavy-Starship system as a successor, alongside the Starlink satellite tv for pc community, which had 9,633 energetic satellites as of January 2026 and greater than 5 million subscribers as of 2025.
In November 2025, Musk secured shareholder approval for a $1 trillion Tesla compensation bundle tied to efficiency targets together with elevating Tesla’s market capitalization to roughly $8.5 trillion.
In June 2026, SpaceX accomplished its IPO, promoting shares at $135 every, elevating $75 billion and valuing the corporate at about $1.77 trillion, making Musk the world’s first trillionaire as soon as shares started buying and selling.
Shifting on to Musk’s different ventures, Tesla was based in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Musk joined in 2004 as one in all its main early funders relatively than as an unique founder, later changing into chairman after which CEO in 2008.
Underneath his management, Tesla launched the Roadster (2006), Mannequin S (2012), Mannequin X (2015), and Mannequin 3 (2017), which turned the best-selling electrical automotive of all time, together with the Cybertruck, which entered restricted manufacturing in late 2023 after provide chain delays.
Musk acquired Twitter in October 2022 for $44 billion following months of public negotiation and an tried withdrawal from the deal over issues in regards to the platform’s bot account disclosures, later renaming it X in July 2023.
Amongst his first adjustments as proprietor have been shedding roughly half the corporate’s workers and introducing paid blue-check verification, beforehand reserved for notable figures.
He additionally disbanded the platform’s content-moderation physique and reinstated quite a few beforehand banned accounts, adjustments that coincided with a pointy decline in promoting income as many firms paused spending on the platform.
On Musk’s AI enterprise, he co-founded OpenAI as a nonprofit in 2015 alongside Sam Altman and different buyers, meant as a safety-focused counterbalance to Google’s early AI lead, however exited three years later over a cited battle of curiosity with Tesla.
He later sued OpenAI, Altman, Greg Brockman, and Microsoft in 2024, alleging the group had deserted its nonprofit mission, and provided $97.4 billion to accumulate OpenAI in February 2025, a suggestion the corporate declined. In spring 2026, a federal court docket in California heard the case, and a jury dominated towards Musk, discovering he had waited too lengthy to file the lawsuit.
In 2023, 9 months after buying Twitter, Musk based xAI, whose major product, Grok, competes with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.
He additionally based The Boring Firm in 2016 and Neuralink in 2016, the latter creating brain-computer interface know-how that started human medical trials in 2023.
For profiles of different builders shaping the Web3 business, go to our crypto personalities web page.
Elon Musk’s Ties to Crypto
Musk’s relationship with crypto contains Tesla’s high-profile 2021 Bitcoin buy, framed on the time as each an inflation hedge and a sign of the EV maker’s openness to monetary innovation, adopted by a later reversal on accepting Bitcoin for automobile funds over environmental issues.
He has additionally been carefully related to Dogecoin, serving to shift its public notion from a meme asset towards broader mainstream dialogue. Musk beforehand confirmed private holdings of Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and Ethereum, whereas stating he doesn’t maintain a broadly diversified crypto portfolio. His public commentary on crypto has repeatedly moved costs impartial of institutional buying and selling exercise, reflecting the identical outsized market affect his statements carry throughout the businesses he’s instantly concerned with.
Elon Musk and Politics
Musk’s political engagement shifted rightward within the early 2020s, and he turned a outstanding monetary supporter of Donald Trump’s 2024 marketing campaign via America PAC.
After Trump returned to workplace in 2025, Musk turned a particular authorities worker and helped lead the Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE), an initiative geared toward lowering federal spending, which performed a job in dismantling a lot of the US Company for Worldwide Growth.
The initiative drew each help from these citing wasteful spending and criticism from these arguing it exceeded government authority and disrupted authorities companies.
Musk stepped down from that function in Could 2025 after expressing disagreement with proposed laws he argued would improve federal deficits, and he and Trump subsequently criticized one another publicly, with Trump threatening to revoke federal contracts held by Musk’s firms.
Elon Musk’s Web Price in 2026
Musk turned the world’s first trillionaire in June 2026, following SpaceX’s IPO, which valued the corporate at roughly $1.77 trillion. His wealth has grown significantly over the previous decade, from roughly $208.6 billion as of March 2024 to an estimated $500 billion in 2025 in keeping with Forbes, earlier than reaching trillionaire standing this yr.
His fortune stays tied primarily to his fairness stakes in Tesla and SpaceX relatively than any fastened wage, on condition that his compensation has been structured nearly fully round performance-based inventory awards.
Regularly Requested Questions
Want a refresher? Listed here are the questions readers most frequently ask about Elon Musk.
Did Elon Musk discovered Tesla?
No. Tesla was based in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Musk joined in 2004 as one in all its main early buyers, later changing into chairman after which CEO in 2008, however he was not one of many firm’s unique founders.
What’s Elon Musk’s connection to cryptocurrency?
Musk led Tesla’s 2021 Bitcoin buy, later reversed the corporate’s acceptance of Bitcoin for automobile funds over environmental issues, and has been carefully related to selling Dogecoin. He has confirmed private holdings of Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and Ethereum.
Why did Elon Musk go away OpenAI?
Musk co-founded OpenAI as a nonprofit in 2015 alongside Sam Altman however exited three years later, citing a battle of curiosity with software program being developed at Tesla. He later sued the group, however a federal jury dominated towards him in spring 2026, discovering he had waited too lengthy to file the declare.
Is Elon Musk a trillionaire?
Sure, Musk turned the world’s first trillionaire after SpaceX accomplished its IPO in June 2026 at a valuation of roughly $1.77 trillion. Each $1 improve within the general valuation of SpaceX provides roughly $4.76 billion to Elon Musk’s private internet price, based mostly on his huge stake of roughly 4.76 billion shares and choices.
What was Elon Musk’s function in DOGE?
Musk served as a particular authorities worker below the Trump administration in 2025, serving to lead the Division of Authorities Effectivity, an initiative geared toward chopping federal spending that performed a job in dismantling a lot of USAID. He stepped down in Could 2025 amid disagreement over subsequent laws.