Elon Reeve Musk ( born June 28, 1971) is a businessman best known for founding SpaceX and leading Tesla, Inc. He also owns X Corp. (which operates X, formerly Twitter) and has co-founded several ventures, including Neuralink, OpenAI, and the Boring Company. As of January 2025, Forbes estimates his net worth at $421 billion, making him the world’s wealthiest individual.

Born in Pretoria, South Africa, Musk briefly attended the University of Pretoria before immigrating to Canada at 18, gaining citizenship through his Canadian-born mother, Maye. After attending Queen’s University in Canada, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, earning degrees in economics and physics.

In 1995, Musk moved to California, co-founding the startup Zip2 with his brother Kimbal. Compaq acquired the company in 1999 for $307 million. That same year, he co-founded X.com, an online bank, which later merged to form PayPal. In 2002, eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion, and Musk used $100 million of his earnings to establish SpaceX.