Where is Elon Musk from? Where did he study and how did he get started in the tech industry?
Elon Musk is the richest person in the world. Where did he receive his education and what were the beginnings of his success in the tech industry?
Elon Musk is the richest person in the world, with Forbes placing his net worth at more than $221 billion as of Aug. 12, 2024.
He’s known for founding and/or leading several prominent technology companies, including Tesla, SpaceX, and X (formerly Twitter), among others.
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Where is Elon Musk from? Where did he study and how did he get started in the tech industry?
Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa. His father, Errol, is a South African electromechanical engineer and businessman, while his mother, Maye, is a Canadian-born model, author, and dietitian. Musk has two younger siblings, Kimbal and Tosca.
From a young age, he showed a strong interest in computers and technology, teaching himself to program by the age of 10. Musk graduated from Pretoria Boys High School in South Africa.
At 17, Musk moved to Canada to seek better opportunities, and acquired citizenship through his Canadian-born mother.
He attended Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, for two years, then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Physics and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Wharton School of Business.
Musk was accepted into a Ph.D. program in applied physics at Stanford University in 1995. However, he left the program after just two days to pursue a career in business and technology, sensing the potential of the Internet boom.
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Musk’s early career and entry into the tech industry
Zip2
Musk co-founded Zip2, a city guide software company, with his brother Kimbal in 1996. Zip2 provided newspapers with maps and business directories for their online versions. The company became successful and was eventually sold to Compaq for around $300 million in 1999, netting Musk $22 million from the sale.
PayPal
After selling Zip2, Musk founded X.com, an online payment company, in 1999. X.com quickly grew, and in 2000, it merged with a company called Confinity, which had a money-transfer service known as PayPal.
Musk focused the merged company’s efforts on PayPal, which became the most widely used online payment system. In 2002, eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion in stock, and as the largest shareholder at the time, he received some $180 million from the deal.
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SpaceX
Using $100 million from the PayPal sale, Musk founded SpaceX, with the goal of reducing space transportation costs to enable the colonization of Mars.
Tesla
Musk was an early investor in Tesla, an electric vehicle manufacturer. He became the company’s chair and later its CEO and product architect. Under his leadership, Tesla became the world’s most valuable automaker, pioneering electric vehicles and sustainable energy solutions.
X (formerly Twitter)
In early 2022, Musk revealed he had a 9.2% stake in micro-blogging site Twitter. After months of negotiations, the billionaire took over the company in October of that year, and a few months after, he renamed the social media platform X.