Tech

Elon Musk

Emigrated from South Africa at 17; sold two internet companies and invested the proceeds into SpaceX and Tesla.

Born: 1971 · Pretoria, South Africa
Roots: White South African; British and Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry
Family: Affluent; Financially comfortable household; engineer father. Left home at 17.
Education: Queen's University → University of Pennsylvania (physics, economics)
Started with: ~$28K; Reported family-backed seed into Zip2 in 1995.
Affiliations & societies: None documented.; Information only — claims like these are often unverifiable and may be wrong.

The pathway

1983 · age 12
Sells a video game$500
A space shooter called Blastar, sold to a computer magazine.
1989 · age 17
Emigrates to Canada
Moves without his parents; works farm and odd jobs.
1995 · age 24
Founds Zip2~$28K seed
With his brother Kimbal; sleeps in the office to cut costs.
1999 · age 27
Zip2 sold to Compaq$22M
His share of the $307M sale.
2002 · age 31
PayPal sold to eBay$176M
Removed as CEO in 2000, but the largest shareholder at the sale.
2004 · age 32
Invests the proceeds$100M+
$100M into SpaceX, $6.5M lead investment into Tesla.
2008 · age 37
Both companies near bankruptcy
A NASA contract and a Tesla financing round close in December 2008.
2021 · age 49
Ranked world's richest person
Per Bloomberg and Forbes.

Sources

Compiled from these references and contemporaneous press reporting. Figures are approximate; verify before relying on them.