Elon Musk

Elon Musk was born in 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa. Elon Musk's background is described as White South African; British and Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry. Growing up, the family was affluent — financially comfortable household; engineer father. Left home at 17. 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

1. 1983 · age 12
   Sells a video game$500

   A space shooter called Blastar, sold to a computer magazine.

2. 1989 · age 17
   Emigrates to Canada

   Moves without his parents; works farm and odd jobs.

3. 1995 · age 24
   Founds Zip2~$28K seed

   With his brother Kimbal; sleeps in the office to cut costs.

4. 1999 · age 27
   Zip2 sold to Compaq$22M

   His share of the $307M sale.

5. 2002 · age 31
   PayPal sold to eBay$176M

   Removed as CEO in 2000, but the largest shareholder at the sale.

6. 2004 · age 32
   Invests the proceeds$100M+

   $100M into SpaceX, $6.5M lead investment into Tesla.

7. 2008 · age 37
   Both companies near bankruptcy

   A NASA contract and a Tesla financing round close in December 2008.

8. 2021 · age 49
   Ranked world's richest person

   Per Bloomberg and Forbes.