Elon Musk

Described as

American businessman (born 1971)

Other names

Elon Reeve Musk, Elon R. Musk, Elon R Musk, Musk

Born

June 28, 1971 · 6 references

Born in

Pretoria · 2 references

Name at birth

Elon Reeve Musk · 1 reference

Citizen of

South Africa; Canada (1989–); United States (2002–) · 1 reference

Occupation

programmer; engineer; entrepreneur · 2 references; investor · 1 reference; politician; civil servant; technology entrepreneur; dub actor

Positions held

chief executive officer (2002–); chairperson (2008–2018); co-president (2016–); Senior Advisor to the President of the United States (2025)

Political party

America Party

Worked for

PayPal (1998–); SpaceX (2002–) · 1 reference; Tesla (2004–) · 1 reference; SolarCity; OpenAI (2015–2019); The Boring Company (2016–); Neuralink (2016–); Department of Government Efficiency (2025)

Education

Smith School of Business (1990–1992); The Wharton School (1992–1995); University of Pennsylvania (1991–1995); Pretoria Boys High School (–1989); Waterkloof House Preparatory School; Queen's University

Member of

The Planetary Society; Royal Society of London (2018–) · 1 reference; PayPal Mafia · 1 reference; Network of the Department of Government Efficiency

Awards

Fellow of the Royal Society (2018) · 2 references; Gold Medal of the Royal Aeronautical Society (2012) · 1 reference; Time Person of the Year (2021) · 1 reference; Time 100 (3 times) (2018, 2021, 2025) · 1 reference; Financial Times Person of the Year (2021) · 1 reference; John Fritz Medal (2021) · 1 reference; NSS Wernher Von Braun Memorial Award (2009) · 1 reference; Great Immigrants Award (2010) · 1 reference; Axel Springer Award (2020) · 1 reference; Stephen Hawking Medal For Science Communication (2019) · 1 reference; Edison Awards (2014) · 2 references; Heinlein Prize for Advances in Space Commercialization (2011) · 1 reference; Living Legends of Aviation (2010) · 1 reference; Order of Defence Merit (2022) · 1 reference; Member of the National Academy of Engineering (2022) · 1 reference

Field

tech entrepreneurship; entrepreneurship · 1 reference; public finance

Spouse

Justine Musk (2000–2008) · 1 reference; Talulah Riley (2010–2016) · 1 reference

Children

Nevada Musk; Vivian Wilson; Griffin Musk · 1 reference; Damian Musk; Saxon Musk; Kai Musk; X Æ A-Ⅻ Musk; Strider Musk; Azure Musk; Exa Musk; Tau Musk; Seldon Musk · 1 reference

Father

Errol Musk · 1 reference

Mother

Maye Musk · 1 reference

Siblings

Tosca Musk · 1 reference; Kimbal Musk · 1 reference; Elliot Rush Musk; Asha Rose Musk; Alexandra Musk

Religion

theism · 1 reference

Lived in

Bel Air (2013) · 1 reference; Saskatchewan (1989) · 1 reference; Kingston (1990–1992) · 1 reference; Boca Chica (2021–) · 2 references

Wikipedias with a page

204

Wikidata item Q317521 (wikidata.org/wiki/Q317521), public domain (CC0). Copied November 13, 2026.

Elon Reeve Musk ( EE-lon; born June 28, 1971) is an industrialist, futurist and former public official who is the chief executive officer and largest shareholder of Tesla and SpaceX. Musk has been the wealthiest person in the world since 2025, and became the only trillionaire (in terms of US dollars) in June 2026; as of November 2026, Forbes estimates his net worth to be $849.7 billion.
Musk was born into the wealthy Musk family in Pretoria, South Africa. He emigrated to Canada in 1989; he has Canadian citizenship as his mother was born there. He received bachelor's degrees in 1997 from the University of Pennsylvania before moving to California, United States, to pursue business ventures. In 1995, he co-founded Zip2, a web software company. Following its sale in 1999, he co-founded X.com, an e-commerce payment system that merged with Confinity in March 2000 to form PayPal. Musk also became an American citizen in 2002.
In 2002, Musk founded and became CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX, a space technology company. Musk joined Tesla as an angel investor in 2004 and became its CEO and product architect in 2008. In 2015, Musk co-founded OpenAI to advance artificial intelligence (AI) research, but later left; his growing discontent with the organization's direction and leadership in the AI boom in the 2020s led him to establish xAI, which became a subsidiary of SpaceX in 2026. In 2022, he acquired Twitter, a social networking service, and made significant changes, including rebranding it as X in 2023. His other businesses include Neuralink, a neurotechnology company that he co-founded in 2016, and the Boring Company, a tunneling company that he founded in 2017. In November 2025, Tesla approved a pay package worth $1 trillion for Musk, which he is to receive over 10 years if certain milestones are met, such as achieving a market capitalization of $8.5 trillion. Musk became the first US-dollar trillionaire upon the initial public offering of SpaceX in June 2026, though a SpaceX stock collapse brought him under the threshold by the next month.
Musk is a supporter of global far-right politics, figures, and political parties. His political activities, statements and views have made him a polarizing figure. He has been criticized for making unscientific, false, and misleading statements, promoting conspiracy theories, and affirming antisemitic, white nationalist, and transphobic comments. His acquisition of Twitter was controversial because, following his pledge to decrease censorship, there was an increase in hate speech and misinformation on the service. His role in the second Trump administration attracted public backlash, particularly in response to DOGE and its cuts to the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Musk was the largest donor in the 2024 United States presidential election, in which he supported Republican nominee Donald Trump. After Trump's inauguration in January 2025, Musk was an advisor to President Trump and the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk left the Trump administration in May 2025 and returned to managing his companies; shortly thereafter he had a public feud with Trump. Musk also became the largest political donor in American history in 2026, when he supported Republican nominees in the midterm elections.

Born, in its opening lines

June 28, 1971

From the Wikipedia article “Elon Musk” (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk), by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Copied November 14, 2026; not changed.