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attended the University of Pretoria before moving to Canada at age 17. He matriculated at Queen's University and transferred to the University of Pennsylvania two years later, where he received a bachelor's degree in Economics and Physics. He moved to California in 1995 to attend Stanford University but decided instead to pursue a business career, co-founding the web software company Zip2 with his brother Kimbal.

The same year, Musk co-founded online bank X.com, which merged with Confinity in 2000 to form PayPal. The company was bought by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion.

In 2002 Musk founded SpaceX

In 2004 he joined electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors, Inc. (now Tesla, Inc.) as chairman and product architect, becoming its CEO in 2008 In 2006 he helped create SolarCity, a solar energy services company that was later acquired by Tesla and became Tesla Energy.

In 2015 he co-founded OpenAI

In 2016 he co-founded Neuralink

He also agreed to purchase the major American social networking service Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion

Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa.

In 1995, Musk, his brother Kimbal, and Greg Kouri founded web software company Zip2 with funds from angel investors.

In 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services and e-mail payment company

In 2017 Musk purchased the domain X.com from PayPal for an undisclosed amount, explaining it has sentimental value.

In 2002 PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in stock, of which Musk—the largest shareholder with 11.72% of shares—received $175.8 million.

In 2001 Musk became involved with the nonprofit Mars Society.

SpaceX attempted its first launch of the Falcon 1 rocket in 2006,

With an estimated net worth of around US$265 billion as of May 2022,[4] Musk is the wealthiest person in the world according to both the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and the Forbes real-time billionaires list.

The family was very wealthy in Elon's youth; Errol Musk once said, "We had so much money at times we couldn't even close our safe"

Musk has become estranged from his father, whom he describes as "a terrible human being... Almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done."

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.

In 2016 Musk co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology startup company to integrate the human brain with artificial intelligence (AI) by creating devices that are embedded in the human brain to facilitate its merging with machines.

Musk was criticized for his public comments and conduct related to the COVID-19 pandemic.[324][325] He spread misinformation about the virus, including promoting chloroquine and assuming that death statistics were manipulated

In March 2020, Musk stated, "The coronavirus panic is dumb."[334][335][336] In an email sent to all Tesla employees, Musk referred to COVID-19 as a "specific form of the common cold" and guessed that confirmed COVID-19 cases would not exceed 0.1% (n.b., one tenth of one percent) of the US population

"I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy"

Musk has made multiple cameos and appearances in films such as Iron Man 2 (2010),[459] Machete Kills (2013),[460] Why Him? (2016),[461] and Men in Black: International (2019).[462] Television series on which he has appeared include The Simpsons ("The Musk Who Fell to Earth", 2015),[463] The Big Bang Theory ("The Platonic Permutation", 2015),[464] South Park ("Members Only", 2016),[465][466] Rick and Morty ("One Crew over the Crewcoo's Morty", 2019),[467][468], Young Sheldon ("A Patch, a Modem, and a Zantac®", 2017)[469] and Saturday Night Live (2021).[470] He has contributed interviews to the documentaries Racing Extinction (2015) and the Werner Herzog-directed Lo and Behold (2016).[471][472] In China, Elon Musk has become a "trademark phenomenon" according to SCMP, with over 270 different companies having registered trademarks using his English name or Chinese transliteration, for a multitude of products including printing, restaurants, textiles, and design.

Musk was elected a fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2018.[474] In 2015 he received an honorary doctorate in engineering and technology at Yale,[475] and IEEE Honorary Membership.[476] Awards for his contributions to the development of the Falcon rockets include the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics George Low Transportation Award in 2008,[477] the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Gold Space Medal in 2010,[478] and the Royal Aeronautical Society Gold Medal in 2012.[479] He was listed among Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in 2010,[480] 2013,[481] 2018,[482] and 2021.[483] Musk was selected as Time's "Person of the Year" for 2021. Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal wrote that "Person of the Year is a marker of influence, and few individuals have had more influence than Musk on life on Earth, and potentially life off Earth too".[484][485] In 2022, Musk was elected as a member into the National Academy of Engineering "[f]or breakthroughs in design, engineering, manufacturing, and operation of reusable launch vehicles and sustainable transportation and energy systems."