Elon Reeve Musk FRS born on June 28, 1971, is a business magnate, industrial designer, and engineer. He is the founder, CEO, CTO, and chief designer of SpaceX, early investor, CEO, and product architect of Tesla, Inc. Founder of The Boring Company, co-founder of Neuralink and co-founder and initial co-chairman of OpenAI. A centibillionaire, Musk became the richest person in the world in January 2021.
Early life and education
Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, Transvaal, South Africa. His mother is Maye Musk, a model and dietitian born in Saskatchewan, Canada, but raised in South Africa. His father is Errol Musk, a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant, and property developer. He has a younger brother, Kimbal (born 1972), and a younger sister, Tosca (born 1974). His maternal grandfather, Joshua Haldeman, was an American-born Canadian. His paternal grandmother had British and Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry. After his parents divorced in 1980, Musk lived mostly with his father in the suburbs of Pretoria, a choice he made two years after the divorce and subsequently regretted. Musk has become estranged from his father, whom he has described as "a terrible human being... Almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done." He has a half-sister and a half-brother on his father's side. Musk graduated from Pretoria Boys High School in South Africa. At the age of 10, he developed an interest in computing while using the Commodore VIC-20. He learned computer programming using a manual and, by age 12, sold the code of a BASIC-based video game he created called Blastar to PC and Office Technology magazine for approximately $500. An awkward and introverted child, Musk was bullied throughout his childhood and was once hospitalized after a group of boys threw him down a flight of stairs. He attended Waterkloof House Preparatory School and Bryanston High School before graduating from Pretoria Boys High School. Although his father insisted he attend college in Pretoria, Musk was determined to move to the United States. Aware it would be easier to enter the United States from Canada, he applied for a Canadian passport through his Canadian-born mother. While awaiting Canadian documentation, Musk attended the University of Pretoria for five months. This allowed Musk to avoid mandatory service in the South African military. Arriving in Canada in June 1989, Musk failed to locate his great-uncle in Montreal and instead stayed at a youth hostel. He then traveled west to live with a second-cousin in Saskatchewan. He stayed there for a year, working odd jobs at a farm and lumber-mill. In 1990, Musk entered Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. Two years later, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania; he graduated in 1997 with a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in economics from the Wharton School and a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in physics.In 1994, Musk held two internships in Silicon Valley during the summer: at an energy storage start-up called Pinnacle Research Institute, which researched electrolytic ultracapacitors for energy storage, and at the Palo Alto-based start-up Rocket Science Games. Bruce Leak, the former lead engineer behind Apple's QuickTime who had hired Musk, noted: "He had boundless energy. Kids these days have no idea about hardware or how stuff works, but he had a PC hacker background and was not afraid to just go figure things out." In 1995, Musk was accepted to a Ph.D. program in energy physics/materials science at Stanford University in California. Musk attempted to get a job at Netscape but never received a response to his job inquiries. He dropped out of Stanford after two days, deciding instead to join the Internet boom and launch an internet startup.
Career
- Zip
In 1995, Musk, his brother Kimbal, and Greg Kouri founded web software company Zip2 with funds from a group of angel investors. They housed the venture at a small rented office in Palo Alto. The company developed and marketed an internet city guide for the newspaper publishing industry, with maps, directions, and yellow pages. Before the company became successful, Musk could not afford an apartment, instead sleeping on the office couch and showering at the YMCA. They could only afford one computer and, according to Musk, "The website was up during the day and I was coding it at night, seven days a week, all the time." Their efforts materialized when the Musk brothers obtained contracts with The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, and persuaded the board of directors to abandon plans for a merger with CitySearch. Musk's attempts to become CEO were thwarted by the board. Compaq acquired Zip2 for $307 million in cash in February 1999. Musk received $22 million for his 7 percent share from the sale.
- X.com and PayPal
In March 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services and e-mail payment company, with $10 million from the sale of Zip2. One year later, the company merged with Confinity, which had a money-transfer service called PayPal. The merged company focused on the PayPal service and was renamed PayPal in 2001. Musk was ousted in October 2000 from his role as CEO (although he remained on the board) due to disagreements with other company executives over his desire to move PayPal's Unix-based infrastructure to a Microsoft one. In October 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in stock, of which Musk received $165 million. Before its sale, Musk, who was the company's largest shareholder, owned 11.7% of PayPal's shares. In 2017, Musk purchased the domain X.com from PayPal for an undisclosed amount, explaining that it had sentimental value to him.
- SpaceX
In 2001, Musk conceived Mars Oasis, in which a miniature greenhouse on Mars would grow food crops and reawaken public interest in space exploration. In October 2001, Musk traveled with a group to Moscow to buy refurbished Dnepr Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that could send the greenhouse payloads into space. He met with companies such as NPO Lavochkin and Kosmotras; however, Musk was seen as a novice and was even spat on by one of the Russian chief designers. The group returned to the United States empty-handed. In February 2002, the group returned to Russia to look for three ICBMs. They had another meeting with Kosmotras and were offered one rocket for $8 million, which Musk rejected. Musk instead decided to start a company that could build affordable rockets. With $100 million of his early fortune, Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies Corp., traded as SpaceX, in May 2002. In 2006, NASA announced that the company was one of two selected to provide crew and cargo resupply demonstration contracts to the International Space Station (ISS), followed by a $1.6 billion Commercial Resupply Services program contract on December 23, 2008, for 12 flights of its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft to the Space Station, replacing the US Space Shuttle after it retired in 2011. On May 25, 2012, the SpaceX Dragon vehicle berthed with the ISS, making history as the first commercial company to launch and berth a vehicle to the International Space Station. Starting in 2011, SpaceX received funding under NASA's Commercial Crew Development program to develop the Dragon 2 crew capsule. A contract to provide crew flights to the ISS was awarded in 2014. Working towards its goal of reusable rockets, in December 2015, SpaceX successfully landed the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket back near the launch pad, the first time this had been achieved by an orbital rocket. Landings were later achieved on an autonomous spaceport drone ship, an ocean-based recovery platform. Starting in 2017 boosters were reflown on further missions. In February 2018, SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy, the most powerful rocket in operation. The inaugural mission carried a Tesla Roadster belonging to Musk as a dummy payload. SpaceX began development of the Starlink constellation of low Earth orbit satellites in 2015 to provide satellite Internet access, with the first two prototype satellites launched in February 2018. A second set of test satellites and the first large deployment of a piece of the constellation occurred in May 2019, when the first 60 operational satellites were launched. The total cost of the decade-long project to design, build, and deploy the constellation is estimated by SpaceX to be about $10 billion, including nearly $900 million in Federal Communications Commission subsidies. In late 2017, SpaceX unveiled the design for its next-generation launch vehicle and spacecraft system, Big Falcon Rocket (BFR), that would support all SpaceX launch service provider capabilities with a single set of very large vehicles: Earth-orbit, Lunar-orbit, interplanetary missions, and even intercontinental passenger transport on Earth, and totally replace the Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and Dragon vehicles in the 2020s. In 2018, SpaceX announced a planned 2023 lunar circumnavigation mission, a private flight called #dearMoon project. In May 2020, SpaceX launched its first manned flight, the Demo-2, becoming the first private company to place a person into orbit and dock a crewed space-craft with the ISS.
- Tesla
Tesla, Inc. (originally Tesla Motors) was incorporated in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, who financed the company until the Series A round of funding. Both men played active roles in the company's early development prior to Musk's involvement. Musk led the Series A round of investment in February 2004, joining Tesla's board of directors as its chairman. Musk took an active role within the company and oversaw Roadster product design at a detailed level, but was not deeply involved in day-to-day business operations. Following the financial crisis in 2008 and after a series of escalating conflicts in 2007, Eberhard was ousted from the firm. Musk assumed leadership of the company as CEO and product architect in 2008, positions he still holds today. A 2009 lawsuit settlement with Eberhard designates Musk as a fellow Tesla co-founder, along with Tarpenning and two others. As of 2019, Musk is the longest tenured CEO of any automotive manufacturer globally. Tesla first built an electric sports car, the Tesla Roadster, in 2008, with sales of about 2,500 vehicles to 31 countries. It was the first serial production all-electric car to use lithium-ion battery cells. Tesla began delivery of its four-door Model S sedan in June 2012. Although it unveiled its third product, the Model X, in February 2012, the launch was delayed until September 2015. In an interview, Musk favored building a more affordable Tesla model, at around $30,000. Initial deliveries began in 2017, with the $35,000 base model becoming available in February 2019. As of March 2020, the Tesla Model 3 is the world's best-selling electric car, with more than 500,000 units delivered. Musk originally intended to name the Model 3 the Model E but was blocked by Ford which held the trademark, with Musk concluding that "Ford was killing SEX". In July 2016, the first phase of Gigafactory 1, a lithium-ion battery and electric vehicle subassembly factory, was officially opened near Reno, Nevada, by Tesla in partnership with Panasonic. As of May 2020, Gigafactory 1 produces 35 GWh/year of batteries. In July 2016, Tesla began developing Autopilot, their advanced driver-assistance system, in-house after Mobileye ended its partnership with Tesla, citing safety concerns following a fatal crash in which the driver of a Model S using Autopilot was killed. In January 2019, Musk traveled to China for the groundbreaking of Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory, the company's first large-scale plant outside the U.S. In November 2019, Musk unveiled the Tesla Cybertruck, an all-electric pickup truck. The Cybertruck is slated to start commercial production in late 2021.
- SEC lawsuit
In September 2018, Musk was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a tweet claiming funding had been secured for potentially taking Tesla private (at a price of $420 a share, an alleged reference to marijuana). The lawsuit claimed verbal discussions Musk held with foreign investors in July 2018 did not confirm key deal terms and thus characterized the tweet as false, misleading, and damaging to investors, and sought to bar Musk from serving as CEO of publicly traded companies. Musk called the allegations unjustified and claimed he had never compromised his integrity. Two days later, Musk settled with the SEC, without admitting or denying the SEC's allegations. As a result, Musk and Tesla were fined $20 million each, and Musk was forced to step down for three years as Tesla chairman but was able to remain as CEO. Musk has stated in interviews he does not regret the tweet that triggered the SEC investigation. On February 19, 2019, Musk stated in a tweet that Tesla would build half a million cars in 2019. The SEC reacted to Musk's tweet by filing in court, initially asking the court to hold him in contempt for violating the terms of a settlement agreement with such a tweet, which was disputed by Musk. This was eventually settled by a joint agreement between Musk and the SEC clarifying the previous agreement details. The agreement included a list of topics that Musk would need preclearance before tweeting about. In May 2020, a judge prevented a lawsuit from proceeding that claimed a May 1 tweet by Musk regarding Tesla stock price ("too high imo") violated the agreement.
- SolarCity
Musk provided the initial concept and financial capital for SolarCity, which his cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive co-founded in 2006. By 2013, SolarCity was the second largest provider of solar power systems in the United States. In 2014, Musk committed to building a SolarCity advanced production facility in Buffalo, New York, triple the size of the largest solar plant in the United States. Construction on the factory started in 2014 and was completed in 2017. It was operated as a joint venture with Panasonic until early 2020.Tesla acquired SolarCity for over $2 billion in 2016 and converted it into its solar division; the announcement of the deal resulted in a more than 10% drop in Tesla's stock price. At the time, SolarCity was facing liquidity issues; however, Tesla shareholders were not informed. Consequently, multiple shareholder groups have filed a lawsuit against Musk and Tesla's directors, claiming that the purchase of SolarCity was done solely to benefit Musk and came at the expense of Tesla and its shareholders. During a June 2019 court deposition, Musk acknowledged that the company reallocated every possible employee from the solar division to work on the Model 3, and, according to Musk, "as a result, solar suffered." This had not previously been disclosed to shareholders. Court documents unsealed in 2019 have confirmed that Musk was also aware of the company's liquidity issues. Tesla directors settled the lawsuit in January 2020, leaving Musk the sole remaining defendant.
- Neuralink
In 2016, Musk co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology start-up company to integrate the human brain with AI. The company is centered on creating devices that can be implanted in the human brain, with the eventual purpose of helping human beings merge with software and keep pace with advancements in artificial intelligence. These enhancements could improve memory or allow more direct interfacing with computing devices.At a live demonstration in August 2020, Musk described one of their early devices as "a Fitbit in your skull" which could soon cure paralysis, deafness, blindness, and other disabilities. Many neuroscientists and publications criticized these claims. For example, MIT Technology Review described them as "highly speculative" and "neuroscience theater".
- The Boring Company
In 2016, Musk founded The Boring Company (TBC) to construct tunnels. Discussions with regulatory bodies began in January 2017. In February 2017, the company began digging a 30-foot (9.1 m) wide, 50-foot (15 m) long, and 15-foot (4.6 m) deep "test trench" on the premises of Space X's offices in Los Angeles, since the construction requires no permits. A tunnel beneath the Las Vegas Convention Center was completed in early 2020. Local officials have approved further expansions of the tunnel system.As a merchandising and publicity stunt, The Boring Company sold 2,000 "flamethrowers" in 2018. The idea was allegedly inspired by the Mel Brooks-directed film Spaceballs (1987), a favorite of Musk's.
Other efforts
- Hyperloop
Musk first envisioned a high-speed transportation system incorporating reduced-pressure tubes to move pressurized capsules on an air cushion driven by linear induction motors and air compressors in around 2011 and then assigned a dozen engineers from Tesla and SpaceX to establish the conceptual foundations and create initial designs. On August 12, 2013, Musk unveiled the concept which he dubbed the Hyperloop. The alpha design for the system was published in a whitepaper posted to the Tesla and SpaceX blogs. The document scoped out the technology and outlined a notional route where such a transport system could be built between the Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area at an estimated total cost of $6 billion. The proposal, if technologically feasible at the costs he has cited, would make Hyperloop travel cheaper than any other mode of transport for such long distances. In June 2015, Musk announced a design competition for students and others to build Hyperloop pods to operate on a SpaceX-sponsored mile-long track in a 2015–2017 Hyperloop pod competition. The track was used in January 2017, and Musk also announced that the company started a tunnel project with Hawthorne airport as its destination. In July 2017, Musk claimed that he had received "verbal government approval" to build a hyperloop from New York City to Washington, D.C., stopping in both Philadelphia and Baltimore.
- OpenAl
In December 2015, Musk announced the creation of OpenAI, a not-for-profit AI research company. OpenAI aims to develop artificial general intelligence in a way that is safe and beneficial to humanity. By making AI available to everyone, OpenAI wants to "counteract large corporations who may gain too much power by owning super-intelligence systems devoted to profits, as well as governments which may use AI to gain power and even oppress their citizenry." Musk has stated he wants to counteract the concentration of power. In 2018 Musk left the OpenAI board to avoid possible future conflicts with his role as CEO of Tesla as Tesla increasingly became involved in AI through Tesla Autopilot. In an interview with Joe Rogan in September 2018, Musk expressed his concerns about the dangers of developing AI indiscriminately. In January 2019, Mark Harris of The Guardian noted that the Musk foundation had "added a line to its website, stating its support for the "development of safe artificial intelligence to benefit humanity".
- Tham Luang cave rescue and defamation case
In July 2018, Musk arranged for his employees to build a small rescue pod to assist the rescue of children stuck in a flooded cavern in Thailand. Named "Wild Boar" after the children's soccer team, its design was a five-foot (1.5 m)-long, 12-inch (300 mm)-wide sealed tube weighing about 90 pounds (41 kg) propelled manually by divers in the front and back with segmented compartments to place diver weights to adjust buoyancy, intended to solve the problem of safely extracting the children. Engineers at SpaceX and TBC built the mini-submarine out of a Falcon 9 liquid oxygen transfer tube in eight hours and personally delivered it to Thailand. However, by this time, eight of the 12 children had already been rescued using full face masks and oxygen under anesthesia and Thai authorities declined to use the submarine. Vernon Unsworth, a recreational caver who had been exploring the cave for the previous six years and played a key advisory role in the rescue, criticized the submarine on CNN as amounting to nothing more than a public relations effort with no chance of success, and that Musk "had no conception of what the cave passage was like" and "can stick his submarine where it hurts". Musk asserted on Twitter that the device would have worked and referred to Unsworth as "pedo guy". He subsequently deleted the tweets, along with an earlier tweet in which he told another critic of the device, "Stay tuned jackass." On July 16, Unsworth stated that he was considering legal action. Two days later, Musk issued an apology for his remarks. Then, on August 28, 2018, in response to criticism from a writer on Twitter, Musk tweeted, "You don't think it's strange he hasn't sued me?" The following day, a letter dated August 6 from L. Lin Wood, the rescuer's attorney, emerged, showing that he had been making preparations for a libel lawsuit. Around this time, James Howard-Higgins emailed Musk claiming to be a private investigator and with an offer to "dig deep" into Unsworth's past, which Musk accepted; Higgins was later revealed to be a convicted felon with multiple counts of fraud. On August 30, using details produced during the alleged investigation, Musk sent a BuzzFeed News reporter who had written about the controversy an email prefaced with "off the record" and claimed that Unsworth is a "single white guy from England who's been traveling to or living in Thailand for 30 to 40 years... until moving to Chiang Rai for a child bride who was about 12 years old at the time." On September 5, the reporter tweeted a screenshot of the email, saying that "Off the record is a two-party agreement," which he "did not agree to." In September, Unsworth filed a defamation suit in Los Angeles federal court. In his defense, Musk argued that in slang usage "'pedo guy' was a common insult used in South Africa when I was growing up... synonymous with 'creepy old man' and is used to insult a person's appearance and demeanor." The defamation case began in December 2019, with Unsworth seeking $190 million in damages. During the trial Musk apologized to Unsworth again for the tweet. On December 6, the jury found in favor of Musk and ruled he was not liable.
- 2018 Joe Rogan podcast appearance
On September 6, 2018, Musk appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast and discussed various topics for over two hours. One of the highest profile and controversial aspects of the program was Musk's sampling a single puff from a cigar consisting, Joe Rogan claimed, of tobacco laced with cannabis. To Rogan's inquiry on how often he smoked cannabis, Musk replied: "Almost never. I know a lot of people like weed and that's fine, but I don't find that is very good for productivity... not for me." The Washington Post observed that, "In the media's hands, it became a story about Musk's growing instability." Tesla stock dropped after the incident, which coincided with the confirmation of the departure of Tesla's Vice President of Worldwide Finance earlier that day. Fortune wondered if the cannabis use could have ramifications for SpaceX contracts with the United States Air Force, though a USAF spokesperson told The Verge that there was no investigation and that the Air Force was still processing the situation. In a 60 Minutes interview, Musk said of the incident: "I do not smoke pot. As anybody who watched that podcast could tell, I have no idea how to smoke pot."
- Music ventures
On March 30, 2019, Musk released a rap track, "RIP Harambe", on SoundCloud under the name "Emo G Records". The track was performed by Yung Jake, written by Yung Jake and Caroline Polachek, and produced by BloodPop. On January 30, 2020, Musk released an EDM track, "Don't Doubt Ur Vibe", featuring his own lyrics and vocals. While Guardian critic Alexi Petridis described it as "indistinguishable... from umpteen competent but unthrilling bits of bedroom electronica posted elsewhere on Soundcloud", TechCrunch said it was "not a bad representation of the genre".
- Philanthropy
Musk is chairman of the Musk Foundation, which states its purpose is to provide solar-power energy systems in disaster areas as well as other goals. Since 2002, the foundation has made over 350 contributions. Around half were to scientific research or education nonprofits. Notable beneficiaries include the Wikimedia Foundation, his alma mater the University of Pennsylvania, and his brother Kimball's Big Green. Musk is a trustee of the X Prize Foundation, and, in 2012, signed The Giving Pledge, promising to give at least half of his fortune to charity. On February 8 2021, Musk and the X Prize Foundation announced the Gigaton Scale Carbon Removal prize, with a pocket of 100 million Dollar the largest incentive prize in history, to tackle climate change and award the team that develops the best carbon capture technology by 2025.
Personal life
Musk met his first wife, Canadian author Justine Wilson, while attending Queen's University. They married in 2000 and separated in 2008. Their first son died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) at the age of 10 weeks. They share custody of five sons. In 2008, Musk began dating English actress Talulah Riley, and in 2010, the couple married. In 2012, Musk announced a divorce from Riley. In 2013, Musk and Riley remarried. In December 2014, Musk filed for a second divorce from Riley; however, the action was withdrawn. A second divorce was finalized in 2016. Musk then dated Amber Heard, whom he had reportedly been pursuing since 2012, for several months in 2017. Musk was later accused of having an affair with Heard while she was still married to Johnny Depp. In May 2018, Musk and Canadian musician Grimes revealed that they were dating. Grimes gave birth to their son in May 2020. According to Musk and Grimes, his name was "X Æ A-12"; however, the name was deemed illegal under California law, because it contained characters that are not in the modern English alphabet, and was then changed to "X Æ A-Xii". This drew more confusion, as Æ is not a letter in the modern English alphabet. The child was eventually named "X AE A-XII", with "X" as a first name and "AE A-XII" as a middle name. From the early 2000s until late 2020, Musk resided in the Los Angeles area of California where both Tesla and SpaceX were founded and where their headquarters are still located. As of December 2020, Musk resides in Texas.
In popular culture
Musk has had multiple cameos and appearances in films such as Iron Man 2 (2010), Why Him? (2016), and Men in Black: International (2019). Television series on which he has appeared include The Simpsons (2015), The Big Bang Theory (2015), South Park (2016), and Rick and Morty (2019). He has contributed interviews to the documentaries Racing Extinction (2015) and the Werner Herzog-directed Lo and Behold (2016).
