Elon Musk has made billions in his lifetime, so he must be from a wealthy family, right?
While it may seem like all signs point to Elon coming from privilege, the truth could surprise you!
Let’s find out more about the billionaire!
Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa. He is the oldest of three children, and his brother and sister were twins.
When Elon was only eight years old his father taught him how to program on an Atari computer at home.
His parents divorced when Musk was around the age of nine or ten, leaving Elon’s mother with all four kids!
Elon went to Waterkloof House Preparatory School before attending Bryanston High School. He often got into trouble for skipping class as well as pranks like painting one of the teacher’s cars with graffiti!
Life After College
After high school, Elon made it his goal to move over to North America right away.
But first, he completed two degrees from the University of Pennsylvania.
He studied economics as well as physics!
After Elon moved to the United States, he eventually attended graduate school at Stanford but dropped out after only two days because it wasn’t challenging enough for him.
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Was Elon Musk Born Rich?
Elon Musk’s family was wealthy when he started. Actually, they were very wealthy according to his father Erol.
In his interview with Business Insider, he said: “We were very wealthy, we had so much money at times we couldn’t even close our safe.”
The First Successful Company
Elon Musk is most famously known for being the co-founder, CEO, and product architect of Tesla Motors which was founded on July 01, 2003.
The company manufactures electric cars that many celebrities own including Will Smith, Jay Z, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Cameron Diaz just to name a few. His brand also pioneered the future of automobiles!
Tesla Motors has had some major success with their first vehicle called the Roadster.
The car costs $ 101,900 (before any tax credits) and can go 245 miles per charge! That is amazing!
SpaceX
Elon Musk is also the co-founder and CEO of SpaceX which was founded on May 06, 2002. This company has a long-term goal to reduce space transportation costs as well as colonize Mars.
They have done some incredible things already including sending their first rocket into orbit in 2008. What is even more impressive is that they landed it back on Earth!
In 2010 they made history by sending an unmanned capsule with cargo up to the International Space Station.
In 2017 they successfully reused one of their rockets for the first time ever!
That’s huge news because normally those things are destroyed after launch but now we could potentially see them used over and over again!
Last year, SpaceX launched 98 rockets and this year they already launched 100 rockets, more than any other launch company in history!
X/Twitter
Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, but let me share a conspiracy theory from my own perspective. Conservatives/Republicans didn’t have dominance on any major social media platform, so they decided to take over one.
Elon Musk was just the frontman, not the sole financier behind the deal. I could be wrong, but it seems logical to me.