- Wikipedia

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For other uses, see Elon Musk (disambiguation).

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Elon Musk FRS
$\"Portrait$ Musk in 2018

Administrator of the Department of Government Efficiency
Incumbent
Assumed office January 20, 2025
President	Donald Trump
Preceded by	Position established
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Personal details
Born	Elon Reeve Musk (1971-06-28) June 28, 1971 (age 53) Pretoria, Transvaal, South Africa
Citizenship	\n South Africa \n Canada (from 1989) \n United States (from 2002) \n
Political party	Republican
Spouses	\n Justine Wilson \n (m. 2000; div. 2008) \n Talulah Riley \n (m. 2010; div. 2012) \n \n (m. 2013; div. 2016)
Children	12^[1]
Parents	Errol Musk (father) Maye Musk (mother)
Education	University of Pennsylvania (BA, BS)
Occupation	\n Founder, CEO, and chief engineer of SpaceX \n CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc. \n Owner, CTO and executive chairman of X (formerly Twitter) \n Founder of The Boring Company, X Corp., and xAI \n Co-founder of Neuralink, OpenAI, Zip2, and X.com (part of PayPal) \n President of the Musk Foundation \n
Awards	Full list
Signature	$\"\"$
\n \n \n Elon Musk's voice \n \n Elon Musk speaking about India and his meeting with its prime minister, Narendra Modi Recorded June 20, 2023 \n

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Personal

Companies

Zip2
X.com\n
- PayPal
SpaceX\n
- Starlink
Tesla, Inc.\n
- SolarCity
- Energy
- criticism
- litigation
OpenAI
Neuralink
The Boring Company\n
- Boring Test Tunnel
- Hyperloop
X Corp.\n
xAI
Thud
Texas Institute

Politics

In popular culture

Elon Reeve Musk (/\u02c8i\u02d0l\u0252n m\u028csk/; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman and conservative political figure known for his key roles in the automotive company Tesla, Inc. and the space company SpaceX. He is also known for his ownership of X Corp. (the company that operates the social media platform X, formerly Twitter), and his role in the founding of the Boring Company, xAI, Neuralink, and OpenAI. Musk is the wealthiest individual in the world; as of January 2025^[update], Forbes estimates his net worth to be US$426 billion.\n

A member of the wealthy South African Musk family, Musk was born in Pretoria and briefly attended the University of Pretoria. At the age of 18 he immigrated to Canada, acquiring its citizenship through his Canadian-born mother, Maye. Two years later, he matriculated at Queen's University in Canada. Musk later transferred to the University of Pennsylvania and received bachelor's degrees in economics and physics. He moved to California in 1995 to attend Stanford University but never enrolled in classes, and with his brother Kimbal co-founded the online city guide software company Zip2. The startup was acquired by Compaq for $307 million in 1999. That same year, Musk co-founded X.com, a direct bank. X.com merged with Confinity in 2000 to form PayPal. In 2002, Musk acquired United States citizenship, and that October eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion. Using $100 million of the money he made from the sale of PayPal, Musk founded SpaceX, a spaceflight services company, in 2002. \n

In 2004, Musk was an early investor in electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors, Inc. (later Tesla, Inc.), providing most of the initial financing and assuming the position of the company's chairman. He later became the product architect and, in 2008, the CEO. In 2006, Musk helped create SolarCity, a solar energy company that was acquired by Tesla in 2016 and became Tesla Energy. In 2013, he proposed a hyperloop high-speed vactrain transportation system. In 2015, he co-founded OpenAI, a nonprofit artificial intelligence research company. The following year Musk co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology company developing brain\u2013computer interfaces, and the Boring Company, a tunnel construction company. In 2018, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Musk, alleging he falsely announced that he had secured funding for a private takeover of Tesla. To settle the case, Musk stepped down as the chairman of Tesla and paid a $20 million fine. In 2022, he acquired Twitter for $44 billion, merged the company into his newly-created X Corp., and rebranded the service as X the following year. In 2023, Musk founded xAI, an artificial intelligence company.\n

Musk's actions and expressed views have made him a polarizing figure. He has been criticized for making unscientific and misleading statements, including: COVID-19 misinformation; affirming antisemitic, homophobic and transphobic comments; and promoting conspiracy theories. His ownership of Twitter has been controversial because of: large employee layoffs; an increase in posts containing hate speech, misinformation and disinformation on the service; and changes to service features, including verification. Musk has engaged in political activities in several countries, including as a vocal and financial supporter of U.S. president Donald Trump, becoming the largest donor in the 2024 United States presidential election and an informal advisor during his second presidency. In January 2025, he was appointed by Trump as administrator of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).^{[citation needed]}\n

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v t e Elon Musk
Main	\n Awards and honors \n Business career \n Filmography \n Legal affairs \n Other activities \n Political activities\n Gesture controversy \n Public image \n Views \n Wealth \n
Companies	\n Zip2 \n X.com\n PayPal \n SpaceX (Starlink) \n Tesla, Inc.\n Tesla Energy \n criticism \n TSLAQ \n lawsuits \n OpenAI \n Neuralink \n The Boring Company \n Boring test tunnel \n SolarCity \n Thud \n X Corp.\n Twitter, Inc. \n Twitter \n Twitter under Elon Musk \n Acquisition of Twitter \n Twitter Files \n December 2022 suspensions \n Block in Brazil \n xAI \n
Organizations	\n Department of Government Efficiency \n
Depictions	\n Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future (2015) \n \"The Musk Who Fell to Earth\" (2015) \n The Space Barons (2018) \n Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors (2019) \n \"One Crew over the Crewcoo's Morty\" (2019) \n Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet of the Century (2021) \n Return to Space (2022) \n Elon Musk's Crash Course (2022) \n Elon Musk (2023) \n Musk (TBA) \n
People	\n Musk family \n Maye Musk (mother) \n Kimbal Musk (brother) \n Tosca Musk (sister) \n Joshua N. Haldeman (grandfather) \n Lyndon Rive (cousin) \n Justine Musk (first wife) \n Talulah Riley (second wife) \n Grimes (partner) \n Shivon Zilis (partner) \n
Related	\n America PAC \n Astra Nova School \n Billionaire space race \n Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster \n ElonJet \n Hyperloop \n RBG PAC \n Snailbrook, Texas \n Texas Institute of Technology and Science \n
\n $\"\"$ Category \n

v t e Twitter
\n Twitter, Inc. \n X Corp. \n Twitter under Elon Musk \n
People	\n Jack Dorsey \n Noah Glass \n Biz Stone \n Evan Williams \n Dick Costolo \n Parag Agrawal \n Elon Musk \n Linda Yaccarino \n
Technology	\n Bluesky \n Community Notes \n Favstar \n Features\n Verification \n FlockDB \n Gnip \n Seesmic \n Services and applications\n Hootsuite \n Tweetbot \n TweetDeck \n Twitterrific \n Statistics\n Most-followed accounts \n Most-retweeted tweets \n Most-liked tweets \n Tween \n Tweet \n Tweetie \n Twimight \n TwitPic \n
Culture	\n Black Twitter \n dril \n Criticism of \n Frogtwitter \n Milkshake Duck \n Headquarters \n Stan Twitter \n Trends \n Twitterature \n Twitter bomb \n Twitter bot \n Twitter diplomacy \n
History	\n 2020 account hijacking \n Acquisition by Elon Musk \n Censorship\n Brazil \n Nigeria \n Republik Twitter \n Mergers and acquisitions\n BackType \n Bluefin Labs \n Dasient \n Gnip \n Mitro \n Namo Media \n Posterous \n Summify \n Trendrr \n TweetDeck \n Tweetie \n Vine \n Whisper Systems \n Periscope \n Suspensions\n December 2022 \n Topsy Labs \n Twitter Files \n Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh \n Usage\n public figures \n WikiLeaks-related court orders \n

Authority control databases $\"Edit$
International	ISNI VIAF FAST WorldCat
National	Germany United States Japan Italy Czech Republic Russia Spain Netherlands Norway Taiwan Latvia Croatia Chile Korea Poland Israel Catalonia
Academics	CiNii ORCID Scopus
Artists	MusicBrainz
People	Deutsche Biographie Deutsche Synchronkartei DDB
Other	IdRef SNAC

Early life and education

Childhood and family

Education

Business career

Twitter

Other activities

Private jet

Wealth

Views

Politics

Department of Government Efficiency

Conservative PAC activities

International politics

United Kingdom

Germany

Israel

China

Russia

Accusations of antisemitism

Straight-arm gesture controversy

COVID-19

Legal affairs

Personal life

Relationships and children

Public image

Notes

References

Works cited

Further reading

External links