Who Is Elon Musk?
Aside from SpaceX and Tesla Motors, Elon Musk founded several other companies. As a result of their success, he has become the richest person in the world, worth more than $386 billion. The South African-born businessman founded his first companies in the 1990s: Zip2, a city guide, and X.com, later PayPal. Following his naturalization as a US citizen in 2002, Musk moved into the transportation sector through his most recognizable companies. His holdings were diversified in 2022 when he purchased Twitter and renamed it X. Supporter of U.S. government efficiency under Donald Trump’s second administration, Musk announced his departure from the Department of Government Efficiency in May 2025. His professional life is complemented by the fact that he has 14 children.
A few quick facts
His full name is Elon Reeve Musk
I was born on June 28, 1971
HE WAS BORN IN PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA
The former was married for 16 years to Talulah Riley, and the latter to Justine Wilson for 12 years.
In this family, there are Nevada, Vivian, Griffin, Kai, Saxon, Damian, X Æ A-Xii, Strider, Azure, Exa, Techno, Arcadia, Seldon, and R.S.C.
ASTROPHYSICAL SIGN: Cancer
Where Is Elon Musk From?
Born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa, Elon Reeve Musk is an American entrepreneur. It was his mother, Maye Musk, who starred in the oldest CoverGirl campaign ever. Her family supported her by working five jobs at one point when she was a child. Elon Musk’s father is a wealthy South African engineer named Errol Musk.
In his early childhood, Elon lived in South Africa with his brothers, Kimbal and Tosca. He was ten years old when his parents divorced.
Musk became interested in computers around this time and learned how to program. His first game, Blastar, was developed at the age of 12 and he sold it for $500. His parents and doctors ordered a hearing test because he spent so much time daydreaming about inventions.
Bullying continued until the child was 15 years old. His growth spurt led him to learn karate and wrestling as a form of self-defense by then. Martial arts have been a part of his life since he was a child.
When Elon was 17, he moved to Canada against his parents’ wishes to attend university and avoid military service. The reason he obtained Canadian citizenship that year was that he thought the process would make obtaining U.S. citizenship easier. In 2002, Elon became a United States citizen after moving here a few years previously.
According to him, “I wanted to do great things in technology here in North America,” he said in 2013.
Education
He enrolled in Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, shortly after moving to Canada. In 1992, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania after studying there for two years. A bachelor’s degree in economics and physics followed five years later.
A doctorate in energy physics was pursued by Musk at Stanford University. However, he had just moved to California at the perfect time for the internet boom, and joined the rising tech wave after just two days.
Among the companies are SpaceX, Tesla, Twitter, and many more
When Musk was still in college, he launched his first company. Today, he is the CEO of a number of companies, including SpaceX, Tesla Motors, and X (formally Twitter). He has been involved in the following ventures both in the present and in the past:
Zip2 and X.com (now PayPal)
SpaceX
Starlink
Tesla Motors
SolarCity Acquisition
The Boring Company
Buying Twitter and Conversion to X
OpenAI and xAI
Inventions
By researching and launching Full Self-Driving software through SpaceX and Tesla, Musk has made significant advances in sustainable space exploration and driverless transportation. Despite his pioneering spirit, Musk has had mixed results with his other ventures. New high-speed public transportation systems and biocomputer connectivity are a few of the inventions Musk has spent the most time and money on.
Hyperloop
According to Musk, the Hyperloop will propel riders in pods through a network of low-pressure tubes at speeds exceeding 700 mph using a system of low-pressure tubes. In his proposal, the inventor suggested building a transit system connecting San Francisco with Los Angeles, an undertaking that could take seven to ten years to complete. In his proposal, he suggested running the Hyperloop on renewable energy.
The concept was passed off to fellow entrepreneurs in 2014, who formed a startup to pursue Hyperloop technology. After being owned by Richard Branson for a while, the company began to sell off assets and lay off employees in December 2023, Bloomberg reported.
Neuralink
Musk reportedly backed a venture called Neuralink in 2017, which aims to implant devices into humans’ brains to help them merge with technology. Its devices are Bluetooth-enabled chips that connect to smartphones or computers via Bluetooth.
A veterinary report from 2023 indicated monkeys receiving the implant suffered “debilitating health defects,” such as paralysis and swelling of the brain. There were no deaths as a result of the experiments because the implant was only given to “terminal” monkeys, Musk said.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that Neuralink had implanted its first human in January 2024, with the results showing promise. Among the three people with Neuralink implants, the businessman reports there are now 20 to 30 more who will be implanted in 2025.
Net Worth
He has held the title of world’s wealthiest person at various times since early 2021. The CEO of luxury goods conglomerate LVMH, Bernard Arnault, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos regularly swap seats on his show.
Currently, Musk’s net worth is $432.1 billion, according to Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires List. According to Bloomberg, Musk’s fortune amounts to $386 billion. The majority of Musk’s net worth is tied to stock, which makes his wealth highly volatile.
Musk’s fortune is largely derived from Tesla stock, which the Washington Post reported was worth around $120 billion as of June 2024. Due to Tesla’s significant value growth since then, that number is almost certainly even higher now.
As a result of the sale of Zip2 in 1999, Musk earned $22 million for his stake in the company. Musk earned his first billion when eBay purchased PayPal in 2002 and converted that money into $165 million for X.com.
December 2024 marked the first time in history that Musk boasted a fortune of $400 billion or more. During that year, his net worth grew by over $200 billion, according to the Washington Post. Musk’s historic achievement comes on the heels of his loss of $200 billion in 2022, which was the first time a person lost that much money.
Children and ex-wives
Despite being single at the moment, Musk has been married three times to two women and has 13 living children. As an infant, he lost his firstborn child.
Ex-Wife Justine Musk
Musk married Justine Wilson in 2000, and she changed her last name to Musk. As students at Queen’s University, they met each other.
The couple’s first child, Nevada, died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) when he was 10 weeks old in 2002. Even after losing a child, the couple didn’t stop growing their family. Two years later, Elon and Justine welcomed triplets Kai, Saxon, and Damian after welcoming twins Griffin and Vivian in 2004. Using in vitro fertilization, all five children were conceived.
Since 2022, Vivian Jenna Wilson has been legally legally known as Vivian Jenna Wilson. There is no way she wishes to be associated with Elon. As a child, she was cruelly treated by her father for being queer, according to an interview with NBC News in 2024.
After a long and difficult marriage, Elon and Justine divorced. They divorced in 2008 after a contentious process.
Ex-Wife Talulah Riley
Musk met actor Talulah Riley after his first marriage collapsed. Today, she is best known for her roles in the 2005 movie Pride & Prejudice and the TV show Westworld.
By 2012, Musk and Riley had separated from each other. In 2013, they married again, but their relationship ultimately ended in a second divorce in 2016.
Relationship with Amber Heard
A year after Musk finalized his second divorce with Riley and as Heard’s divorce from actor Johnny Depp was finalizing, Musk reportedly began dating actor Amber Heard. In August 2017, Musk and Heard broke up as a result of their busy schedules. It took the couple one month to reconcile again after they split up in January 2018.
Relationship with Grimes
A relationship between Musk and musician Grimes, real name Claire Boucher, began in May 2018. A month later, Grimes announced she had changed her name to “C,” the symbol for light speed. Musk is said to have encouraged her to do so. As a result of accusations of harassment, the feminist performer’s company was described as a “predator zone” by fans.
However, the Wall Street Journal Magazine published an article in March 2019 discussing the couple’s love.The Journal quotes Musk as saying, “I love C’s hyper-intense work ethic and wild fae artistic creativity.”
The couple welcomed their first child in May 2020, naming it X Æ A-12. The name is partially derived from the Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft. A couple announced later in the month that they were changing their son’s name to X-A-Xii after reports that the State of California wouldn’t accept a name that contained a number.
During December 2021, Musk and Grimes welcomed their second child. Surrogacy was used to deliver the child. According to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk, Grimes and Musk had a third child, Techno Mechanicus, nicknamed Tau.
A breakup between Grimes and Musk was announced by the actress in March 2022.
Kids with Shivon Zilis
As a result of Musk’s relationship with Grimes, he quietly welcomed two children with Shivon Zilis in November 2021, a son named Strider and a daughter named Azure. His company Neuralink has Zilis as its project director. Her relationship with Musk has led to the birth of two more children. They have a daughter Arcadia and a son Seldon. Arcadia was born in February 2024, while Seldon was born in February 2025.
The New York Times reports that Zilis and the kids live on a compound Musk helped purchase in Austin, Texas. In addition to the two mansions, the property is close to a third home Musk regularly stays at when he visits the city. A day after the Times article was published, the entrepreneur told Page Six he didn’t own the compound and isn’t building one.
Son with Ashley St. Clair
The conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair announced in February 2025 that she had a brief romantic relationship with Musk that resulted in a baby boy named Romulus. A paternity test confirmed Musk is the boy’s father, but Musk has not confirmed it. There is currently a custody lawsuit between the would-be co-parents, with St. Clair seeking full custody.
Adviser to Donald Trump
Following Donald Trump’s election in 2016, Musk found common ground with the incoming commander-in-chief and his advisers as Trump announced plans to develop massive infrastructure. As a member of the president-elect’s Strategy and Policy Forum, Musk was appointed in December. In January 2017, he joined Trump’s Manufacturing Jobs Initiative, further solidifying their collaboration.
Despite sometimes opposing the president’s controversial measures, such as the ban on immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, Musk defended his involvement. “My goals,” he tweeted in early 2017, “are to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy and make humanity a multi-planet civilization, which will result in hundreds of thousands of new jobs and an inspiring future for all.”
Musk stepped down as an advisor after Trump announced he would withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord in June 2017.
Musk endorsed the Republican nominee for president in the 2024 election despite their uneven relationship during Trump’s first administration. The following month, Musk announced he would appear with Trump for another rally at Butler, Pennsylvania, following an attempted assassination attempt in July 2024.
In an effort to register voters who might support Trump, Musk announced that he would give away 1 million dollars each day to a person who signed a petition from his political action committee supporting the Constitution. It was alleged that Musk’s giveaway could improperly influence the November 5 election, but Musk’s lawyers argued that recipients were not actually chosen randomly, and a judge allowed it to continue. In the end, Trump was re-elected as president for a second term.
As a result of extreme cold, Musk was able to see Trump’s inauguration up close and even spoke at a modified version of the Presidential Parade. In his brief remarks, he made a straight-arm salute that some compared to the Nazi salute.
In order to reduce unnecessary federal spending and modernize technology within the federal government, the president quickly appointed Musk to lead the Department of Government Efficiency. Before disbanding DOGE in early July 2026, Trump gave it 18 months to accomplish its mission. According to a Trump transition team spokesperson, Musk is a once-in-a-generation business leader whose ideas and efficiency will benefit our federal bureaucracy.
More than 30 federal departments and agencies have been impacted by DOGE’s deep cuts. According to The New York Times, around 149,000 government employees have taken buyouts or been laid off. In addition to downsizing, contracts, grants, and office leases have been canceled. According to DOGE’s website, the measures will save $175 billion. Critics, however, have pointed out that some figures included in the total are contracts that are about to expire.
The activity has prompted many lawsuits, some questioning the constitutionality of the cuts, and backlash against Musk, who in court documents is described as a senior presidential adviser, not as DOGE’s administrator. Some Tesla owners sold their models to distance themselves from the controversial billionaire, and protesters vandalized Tesla showrooms.
Musk announced that he would scale back his work with DOGE in April 2025 after the company’s profits dipped. He stepped down from his role as Trump’s top adviser in late May. “As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee ends, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” Musk wrote on Twitter. As it becomes a way of life throughout the government, the @DOGE mission will only grow stronger over time.
SEC Investigation and Lawsuit
Musk’s business decisions and investments have sometimes come under scrutiny, which is not unexpected for the CEO of major public companies. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigated the entrepreneur in 2018 after he floated the idea of making Tesla private. After Musk bought Twitter and renamed it, the SEC filed a lawsuit against him in 2025 regarding his shares in Twitter.
2018 SEC Investigation
Musk was involved in a financial scandal before he purchased Twitter. Tesla’s CEO Musk dropped a bombshell via a tweet on August 7, 2018: “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420.”. As soon as Musk announced that funding had been secured, the SEC began investigating whether Musk had indeed secured the funding as he claimed. As a result of Musk’s tweet, several investors filed lawsuits claiming he was trying to manipulate stock prices and ambush short sellers.
Tesla stock spiked after Musk’s tweet, before closing up 11 percent. On the company blog, the CEO called going private “the best path forward.” He promised to retain his stake in the company and to create a special fund to aid all current investors.
Musk clarified his position six days later with a statement citing discussions with the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund as the source of his “funding secured” statement. A few days later, he tweeted that Goldman Sachs and Silver Lake were working on a proposal to take Tesla private.
Musk announced on August 24, one day after meeting with the board, that he would not be taking the company private. Among his reasons, he cited the preference of most directors to keep Tesla public, as well as the difficulty of keeping some of the large shareholders.
As part of an agreement with the SEC, Musk will pay a $20 million fine and step down as chairman of Tesla’s board for three years.
2025 SEC Lawsuit
A little over six years later, in January 2025, Musk was sued by the SEC for allegedly failing to disclose his stake in X before he acquired Twitter. According to the lawsuit, Musk committed securities fraud by failing to disclose his ownership of more than 5 percent of Twitter’s shares until 11 days after the report was due, enabling him to buy stock at artificially low prices.
Tesla and SpaceX founder underpaid investors $150 million for additional shares he bought after exceeding the 5 percent ownership threshold, according to the SEC. According to the suit, the stock price would have increased significantly had Musk and his wealth manager disclosed his ownership as required. As part of its complaint, the SEC requested that Musk pay “disgorgement of his unjust enrichment” and a civil penalty.
According to Musk, the SEC is wasting its time on him “when there are so many actual crimes that go unpunished.”
Personal Life: Religion, Asperger’s Syndrome, and More
In addition to his work and family lives, Musk enjoys playing video games. His biographer, Walter Isaacson, referred to Musk’s hobby as an addiction. He is a huge fan of Elden Ring, which he previously called “the most beautiful art I’ve ever seen.”
The biopic of Isaacson’s biography of Musk, which was a No. 1 New York Times bestseller, is currently in production. The movie will be directed by Darren Aronofsky. Musk shared the news about the project on social media in late 2023, saying he was “glad Darren is doing it.”. “He’s a great guy.”.
Where Does Elon Musk Live?
Musk announced in May 2020 that he would sell nearly all of his physical possessions. This eventually led Musk to sell multiple properties and move into a $50,000 rental home in Boca Chica, Texas, as his primary residence, according to biographer Walter Isaacson. SpaceX’s development and testing site is near the house.
Asperger’s Syndrome
During an episode of Saturday Night Live in May 2021, Musk revealed that he suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, a developmental disorder that causes problems with socialization and communication. A year later, he elaborated further on his experience growing up with the condition.
Musk explained at the TED2022 conference that he usually takes things very literally… but then that turned out to be incorrect – people do not always say exactly what they mean; there are other meanings as well.
Religion and Political Views
Musk, who long considered himself an atheist, said in 2024 he is a “cultural Christian” who believes in Jesus Christ’s teachings, even if he doesn’t adhere to all of them. According to psychologist and podcast host Jordan Peterson, he believes Jesus’ teachings are good and wise.
Musk’s support for conservative political causes coincides with this notable shift. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, he criticized lockdowns and used social media to amplify his free speech beliefs. PBS reports that he has shared memes and sometimes misinformation about illegal immigration, alleged election fraud, and transgender policy on X.
In broader terms, the boundless potential of space exploration and the preservation of the future of the human race have become the cornerstones of Musk’s abiding interests, and he founded the Musk Foundation, an organization dedicated to space exploration and the discovery of renewable and clean energy.
Musk pledged to donate $1 million to the #TeamTrees campaign that aims to plant 20 million trees by 2020. For the occasion, he even changed his Twitter name to Treelon.
In addition, Musk has raised concerns about a looming world population collapse caused by low birth rates, calling it a “bigger threat to civilization than global warming.” However, many demographers disagree with him.