Elon Musk

Elon Musk

“The South African-born engineer who founded SpaceX, whose rockets land and fly again, built Tesla into a mass-market carmaker, bought Twitter in 2022 and led Trump's DOGE cuts in 2025.”

Elon Musk (born 1971) is a South African-born American engineer and businessman who founded the rocket company SpaceX in 2002 and has led the electric-car maker Tesla since its early years, as chairman from 2004 and chief executive from 2008. Under him SpaceX built the first privately developed liquid-fuelled rocket to reach orbit, the first commercially built spacecraft to visit the International Space Station, boosters that land and fly again, and the Crew Dragon capsule that in 2020 carried NASA astronauts from American soil for the first time since 2011; Tesla made the electric car a mass-market product. He also co-founded the internet companies Zip2 and X.com (which became PayPal), started the brain-implant company Neuralink and the tunnelling firm The Boring Company, helped found OpenAI, bought Twitter in 2022 and renamed it X, and founded the AI company xAI. Admirers credit him with engineering bets that built new industries; critics point to missed deadlines, public statements that courts and regulators have found misleading, safety disputes over Tesla's driver-assistance software, and his use of his wealth and his platform in politics, which peaked in 2025 when he advised President Trump and fronted the cost-cutting 'Department of Government Efficiency'. By published estimates he is the richest person in the world.

He was born in Pretoria on 28 June 1971 to a South African father and a Canadian mother. As a boy he showed an early talent for computers and at twelve sold a video game he had written to a computer magazine. In 1989, at seventeen, he left for Canada, his mother's country, and studied at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, before moving in 1992 to the University of Pennsylvania, which gave him bachelor's degrees in physics and in economics (from its Wharton School). In 1995 he started graduate study in physics at Stanford but left after two days for the young internet. With his brother Kimbal he founded Zip2, which sold online maps and business directories to newspapers; the computer maker Compaq bought it in 1999 for about 307 million dollars. In March 1999 he started X.com, an online bank, which a year later merged with Confinity, the maker of the PayPal money-by-email service. In September 2000 the board replaced him as chief executive with Confinity's Peter Thiel. PayPal went public in February 2002, and in October 2002 eBay bought it for about 1.5 billion dollars.

He incorporated Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) in March 2002, with the stated aim of making spaceflight much cheaper and one day settling Mars. Its small Falcon 1 first flew in 2006 and reached orbit only on its fourth flight, on 28 September 2008, from Omelek Island in the Pacific. NASA money kept the company going: a 278 million dollar agreement of 2006 to develop a cargo service, then in December 2008 a 1.6 billion dollar contract for supply flights to the space station. In May 2012 a Dragon capsule berthed at the station; in December 2015 a Falcon 9 first stage flew back and landed upright; and on 30 May 2020 Crew Dragon launched the astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken. With reused boosters SpaceX came to fly most of the world's launches, and from 2019 it put up thousands of Starlink internet satellites. Its giant Starship, built and launched at Starbase in south Texas, has failed often since its first flight in April 2023, each time under an investigation required by the Federal Aviation Administration, but in October 2024 the launch tower caught a returning booster in mid-air, and NASA has chosen a version of it to land astronauts on the Moon.

Tesla Motors was incorporated in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning; Musk led its 2004 investment, became chairman, and after the troubled start of the Roadster sports car in 2008 took over as chief executive in October 2008. Tesla went public in June 2010 and followed with the Model S (2012), the Model X (2015) and the cheaper Model 3 (2017); in 2016 it bought SolarCity, the solar installer he chaired. His conduct has often ended in court. In August 2018 he wrote on Twitter that he had 'funding secured' to take Tesla private at 420 dollars a share; the SEC charged him with fraud, and in a settlement, without admitting or denying the charges, he and Tesla each paid 20 million dollars and he gave up the chairmanship for three years (a jury later found him not liable to investors over the same posts). His 2018 Tesla pay award, options in twelve slices tied to the company's market value, was cancelled by Delaware's Court of Chancery in January 2024 and restored by the Delaware Supreme Court in December 2025; meanwhile Tesla moved its legal home to Texas, and in November 2025 its shareholders approved a new award of about 424 million shares tied to targets such as an 8.5 trillion dollar market value.

In April 2022 he disclosed a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter and agreed to buy the company for 54.20 dollars a share, about 44 billion dollars; he then tried to walk away, Twitter sued, and the deal closed on 27 October 2022. He laid off about half the staff, sold the verification check mark by subscription, restored many banned accounts, Donald Trump's among them, and renamed the service X in July 2023; many advertisers left, the European Commission fined X 120 million euros in December 2025, and in March 2026 a federal jury found that two of his May 2022 posts had misled Twitter's shareholders. He founded xAI in 2023, folded X into it in March 2025 and merged xAI into SpaceX in February 2026. After spending hundreds of millions of dollars to help elect Trump in 2024, he served in 2025 as a special government employee and senior adviser to the President, the public face of DOGE's cuts to federal jobs and agencies such as USAID, which drew many lawsuits; he left at the end of May 2025 and fell out publicly with Trump. In June 2026 SpaceX went public at 135 dollars a share, raising 75 billion dollars in the largest initial public offering on record and leaving Musk with about 82 percent of its votes; estimates of his fortune then passed a trillion dollars.

What happened

  1. 1971

  2. Elon Reeve Musk is born in Pretoria, South Africa, to a South African father and a Canadian mother.

    Pretoria, South Africa: born here on 28 June 1971; he left for Canada in 1989
  3. 1989

    At seventeen he leaves South Africa for Canada, his mother's country, and enrols at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.

  4. 1992

    He transfers to the University of Pennsylvania, where he studies physics and, at the Wharton School, economics.

  5. 1995

  6. He starts graduate study in physics at Stanford and leaves after two days to work on the internet.

  7. With his brother Kimbal he co-founds Zip2, which sells online city guides, maps and business directories to newspapers.

  8. 1997

    The University of Pennsylvania awards him bachelor's degrees in physics and in economics.

  9. 1999

  10. Compaq buys Zip2 for about 307 million dollars. The same month Musk incorporates X.com, an online bank, and becomes its chief executive.

  11. 2000

  12. X.com merges with Confinity, the company of Peter Thiel and Max Levchin that makes the PayPal email-payment service; Musk becomes chief executive again in May.

  13. The board replaces Musk as chief executive with Peter Thiel; Musk stays on the board.

  14. 2002

  15. PayPal goes public at 13 dollars a share; Musk is a director.

  16. Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is incorporated in Delaware; Musk has been its chief executive and chairman since May 2002.

  17. eBay completes its purchase of PayPal, for about 1.5 billion dollars.

  18. 2004

  19. Having led an investment in Tesla Motors, the electric-car start-up incorporated in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, Musk becomes chairman of its board.

  20. 2005

  21. At NASA Headquarters in Washington he meets the new NASA Administrator, Michael Griffin.

  22. 2006

  23. He becomes chairman of SolarCity, a solar-panel installer.

  24. NASA picks SpaceX and Rocketplane Kistler for its Commercial Orbital Transportation Services programme; SpaceX's agreement is worth 278 million dollars to develop Falcon 9 and the Dragon cargo capsule.

  25. 2008

  26. Tesla begins production of the Roadster, its first car, after long delays.

  27. On its fourth flight, from Omelek Island, Falcon 1 reaches orbit: the first privately developed liquid-fuelled rocket to do so.

    Omelek Island, Kwajalein Atoll: Falcon 1 reached orbit from here on 28 September 2008

  28. He becomes chief executive of Tesla, keeping the chairmanship.

  29. NASA awards SpaceX a Commercial Resupply Services contract worth 1.6 billion dollars for supply flights to the International Space Station with Falcon 9 and Dragon.

  30. 2010

  31. President Obama tours SpaceX's Falcon 9 facility at Cape Canaveral with Musk, the day he sets out NASA's new reliance on commercial companies.

  32. Falcon 9 makes its first flight, from Cape Canaveral.

  33. Tesla goes public on Nasdaq at 17 dollars a share; Musk is to own about 28 percent of it.

  34. 2012
  35. 12:02 p.m.

    Dragon is berthed to the International Space Station, the first commercially developed spacecraft to visit it.

  36. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden visits SpaceX's test site in McGregor, Texas, and congratulates Musk beside the returned Dragon.

  37. At the Fremont factory Tesla hands over the first Model S cars to customers.

    Tesla Factory, 45500 Fremont Boulevard, Fremont, California: Tesla's car plant since 2010, where Model S deliveries began in June 2012
  38. 2014

  39. At SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorne he unveils Dragon V2, the crewed version of the capsule.

    SpaceX headquarters, 1 Rocket Road, Hawthorne, California: the company's main plant, where Falcon 9 and Dragon are built and where Musk unveiled Dragon V2 in 2014

  40. NASA chooses Boeing and SpaceX to fly its astronauts to the space station; SpaceX's contract is worth up to 2.6 billion dollars.

  41. 2015

  42. OpenAI is announced as a non-profit research lab, with Musk and Sam Altman as co-chairs.

  43. After launching eleven Orbcomm satellites, a Falcon 9 first stage flies back and lands upright at Landing Zone 1, Cape Canaveral, the first orbital-class booster to do so.

  44. 2016

  45. He founds Neuralink, to build implants that link the brain to computers, and, late in the year, the tunnelling company The Boring Company.

  46. Tesla completes its purchase of SolarCity.

  47. 2017

  48. Tesla begins production and deliveries of the Model 3, its cheaper mass-market car.

  49. 2018
  50. 3:45 p.m.

    The first Falcon Heavy lifts off from Kennedy Space Center's Pad 39A carrying Musk's own red Roadster as a dummy payload, sent into orbit around the Sun.

  51. OpenAI announces that Musk will leave its board, citing a possible conflict with Tesla's work on AI.

  52. At a special meeting in Fremont, Tesla's shareholders vote on his 2018 performance award: options in twelve tranches that vest only as Tesla's market value rises, up to 650 billion dollars.

  53. The Royal Society elects him a Fellow, as an 'engineer, inventor and entrepreneur'.

  54. He tweets that he could take Tesla private at 420 dollars a share and that 'funding' is 'secured'; Tesla's shares jump more than six percent.

  55. The SEC charges him with securities fraud, saying the tweets were false and misleading.

  56. He settles without admitting or denying the charges: he and Tesla each pay a 20 million dollar penalty, he steps down as chairman for three years, and Tesla must oversee his public statements.

  57. The federal court in New York approves the settlement.

  58. 2019

  59. He presents Neuralink's plans in public.

  60. 2020
  61. 3:22 p.m.

    Crew Dragon lifts off from Pad 39A with NASA's Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken: the first launch of NASA astronauts from American soil since 2011, and the first on a privately built spacecraft.

  62. 2021

  63. NASA picks SpaceX's Starship to land the next American astronauts on the Moon, in a 2.89 billion dollar contract.

  64. 2022

  65. A filing shows he owns 9.2 percent of Twitter.

  66. Twitter agrees to be bought by his company X Holdings for 54.20 dollars a share, about 44 billion dollars.

  67. He sends notice that he is ending the deal, citing fake accounts; Twitter sues to force it.

  68. The takeover closes and Twitter becomes his private company; he soon lays off about half its staff.

  69. 2023

  70. A federal jury in San Francisco finds him and Tesla not liable to investors over the 2018 'funding secured' tweets.

  71. His AI company, X.AI Corp., begins operations; its main product will be the Grok chatbot.

  72. Starship's first full flight test ends with the vehicle destroyed minutes after launch from Starbase; the FAA later requires 63 corrective actions.

  73. He renames Twitter X.

  74. 2024

  75. Delaware's Court of Chancery rules that his 2018 Tesla pay award must be rescinded.

  76. Tesla's shareholders vote again for the 2018 award, and Tesla moves its legal home from Delaware to Texas.

  77. On Starship's fifth flight test the launch tower at Starbase catches the returning Super Heavy booster in mid-air.

    Starbase, Texas: SpaceX's Starship site at Boca Chica and, since 2024, its headquarters; the tower caught a booster here on 13 October 2024

  78. Donald Trump wins the presidential election after Musk spent hundreds of millions of dollars backing him and other Republicans through his America PAC.

  79. The Chancery Court refuses to restore the pay award despite the shareholder vote and awards the plaintiff's lawyers 345 million dollars.

  80. 2025

  81. The SEC sues him for disclosing his Twitter stake late in 2022, alleging he saved at least 150 million dollars on later purchases.

  82. On his first day back in office Trump signs Executive Order 14158, turning the US Digital Service into the US DOGE Service; Musk works in the White House Office as a special government employee.

  83. In the Oval Office, with Musk at his side, Trump signs Executive Order 14210 telling agencies to plan large reductions in their staff with DOGE.

  84. In a lawsuit by fourteen states, the White House declares in court that Musk is a senior adviser to the President, not a DOGE employee, with 'no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself'.

  85. xAI takes over X, combining his AI lab and the social network.

  86. At an Oval Office press conference Trump marks the end of Musk's time as a DOGE adviser; in the following weeks the two quarrel in public.

  87. Tesla starts a paid robotaxi service in Austin, Texas.

  88. Tesla's shareholders approve a new award of about 424 million restricted shares, earned only if Tesla reaches targets such as an 8.5 trillion dollar market value.

  89. The European Commission fines X 120 million euros under the Digital Services Act, its first such decision, for the deceptive design of its paid blue check mark and for failing on advertising transparency and researchers' access to data.

  90. The Delaware Supreme Court reverses the rescission of his 2018 Tesla pay award, granting the plaintiff one dollar in nominal damages and cutting the lawyers' fee.

  91. 2026

  92. SpaceX acquires xAI, and with it X.

  93. A federal jury in San Francisco finds that two of his posts of May 2022, while he was trying to renegotiate the Twitter purchase, misled investors who sold Twitter shares; he challenges the verdict.

  94. The SEC proposes to settle its Twitter-disclosure case: his trust is to pay a 1.5 million dollar penalty without admitting the allegations.

  95. In Oakland a jury finds his claims against OpenAI and Sam Altman were brought too late, and the judge dismisses them.

  96. Starship's twelfth flight test debuts the next-generation vehicle; the Super Heavy booster is lost during its flyback, and the FAA requires a mishap investigation.

  97. SpaceX prices its initial public offering at 135 dollars a share, raising about 75 billion dollars, the largest IPO on record; trading on Nasdaq as SPCX begins, and Musk keeps about 82 percent of the votes.