structural:scholar_edition
Elon Reeve Musk FRS (/ ˈ iː l ɒ n /; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman, conservative political activist, and investor known for his key roles in the space company SpaceX and the automotive company Tesla, Inc. Other involvements include ownership of X Corp., the company that operates the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), and his role in the founding of The Boring Company, xAI, Neuralink, and OpenAI. He is one of the wealthiest individuals in the world; as of August 2024 Forbes estimates his net worth to be US$247 billion.

Musk was born in Pretoria to Maye (née Haldeman), a model, and Errol Musk, a businessman and engineer. Musk briefly attended the University of Pretoria before immigrating to Canada at the age of 18, acquiring citizenship through his Canadian-born mother. Two years later he matriculated at Queen's University at Kingston in Canada. Musk later transferred to the University of Pennsylvania and received bachelor's degrees in economics and physics. He moved to California in 1995 to attend Stanford University, but dropped out after two days and, with his brother Kimbal, co-founded the online city guide software company Zip2. The startup was acquired by Compaq for $307 million in 1999. That same year Musk co-founded X.com, a direct bank. X.com merged with Confinity in 2000 to form PayPal. In October 2002, eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion. Using $100 million of the money he made from the sale of PayPal, Musk founded SpaceX, a spaceflight services company, in 2002.

In 2004, Musk was an early investor who provided most of the initial financing in the electric-vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors, Inc. (later Tesla, Inc.), assuming the position of the company's chairman. He later became the product architect and, in 2008, the CEO. In 2006, Musk helped create SolarCity, a solar energy company that was acquired by Tesla in 2016 and became Tesla Energy. In 2013, he proposed a hyperloop high-speed vactrain transportation system. In 2015, he co-founded OpenAI, a nonprofit artificial intelligence research company. The following year Musk co-founded Neuralink—a neurotechnology company developing brain–computer interfaces —and The Boring Company, a tunnel construction company. In 2018 the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Musk, alleging that he had falsely announced that he had secured funding for a private takeover of Tesla. To settle the case Musk stepped down as the chairman of Tesla and paid a $20 million fine. In 2022, he acquired Twitter for $44 billion, merged the company into the newly-created X Corp. and rebranded the service as X the following year. In March 2023, Musk founded xAI, an artificial-intelligence company.

Musk has expressed views that have made him a polarizing figure. He has been criticized for making unscientific and misleading statements, including COVID-19 misinformation, promoting right-wing conspiracy theories, and "endorsing an antisemitic theory "; he later apologized for the latter. His ownership of Twitter has been similarly controversial given the layoffs of large numbers of employees, an increase in hate speech, misinformation and disinformation posts on the website, and changes to Twitter Blue verification.