Elon Reeve Musk is a businessman and former public official, born 28 June 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa. He is the chief executive officer and largest shareholder of Tesla, Inc. and the founder, chief executive officer, and chief engineer of SpaceX, and he founded and leads the artificial intelligence company xAI. He has also co-founded Neuralink, The Boring Company, OpenAI, Zip2, and X.com, the company that became PayPal. He obtained degrees in physics and economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997 before launching his entrepreneurial career in Silicon Valley, and he has been the world's wealthiest person since 2025.
Facts
Defining ContributionCEO and largest shareholder of Tesla and SpaceX, the electric-vehicle and space-technology companies. 1 Notable Work Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Elon Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 and serves as its chief executive officer and chief engineer, building it into a leading aerospace and launch company.
Elon Musk co-founded PayPal, then founded SpaceX and joined Tesla as an early investor and chairman before becoming CEO, exemplifying serial entrepreneurship across the payments, aerospace and automotive industries.
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.