Elon Musk

Elon Reeve Musk (born June 28, 1971) is a South African-born Canadian-American engineer, entrepreneur, business magnate, and public figure. He is the founder, CEO, and chief designer of SpaceX ; CEO and product architect of Tesla ; owner, executive chairman, and CTO of X (formerly Twitter); and founder of xAI (integrated with SpaceX in 2026), Neuralink , and The Boring Company . Born in Pretoria, South Africa, to a Canadian mother and South African father, Musk experienced a challenging childhood marked by family tensions and bullying at school. At age 17, he emigrated to Canada to attend university and obtain citizenship through his mother, later transferring to the University of Pennsylvania where he earned bachelor's degrees in physics and economics. He was admitted to Stanford University's PhD program in materials science but dropped out after two days to co-found Zip2 in 1995, marking the start of his entrepreneurial career in the internet industry.

Musk has pioneered advancements in reusable rocketry through his company SpaceX , where he oversaw the development of the Falcon family of rockets and the Starship system—the first orbital-class rocket designed for full reusability. These innovations have significantly reduced the cost of space travel and enabled ambitious missions such as Starlink's satellite constellation and plans for Mars colonization. In electric vehicles and autonomous driving, as CEO and product architect of Tesla , Musk has accelerated the global shift to sustainable transport with mass-market EVs like the Model 3 and Model Y, while pushing forward Full Self-Driving technology and robotics with projects like the Optimus humanoid robot. He co-founded Neuralink to develop high-bandwidth brain-computer interfaces aimed at treating neurological disorders and eventually enhancing human cognitive abilities. Through xAI , he seeks to advance artificial general intelligence in a way that prioritizes understanding the universe and benefits humanity. His ventures collectively aim to address existential challenges for humanity, including transitioning the world to sustainable energy via Tesla's electric vehicles, energy storage solutions, and solar products; enabling a multi-planetary civilization to safeguard against Earth-bound extinction events through SpaceX's Mars settlement goals; developing safe and truth-seeking artificial general intelligence with xAI; and augmenting human capabilities through direct neural interfaces with Neuralink. As of late April 2026, Musk is the world's richest person with a net worth estimated at approximately $785 billion according to Forbes' real-time tracker, having reached earlier peaks exceeding $839 billion. His wealth experiences significant fluctuations primarily driven by changes in Tesla's publicly traded stock price and periodic valuations of his private companies, particularly SpaceX. Musk's fortune is primarily derived from his ownership stakes in these companies: approximately 13% of Tesla (though his influence is amplified by voting agreements and board control) and around 42-43% of SpaceX, which was bolstered by its February 2026 merger with xAI, creating a combined entity where his stake contributes substantially to his overall valuation. Smaller contributions come from his positions in X (formerly Twitter), Neuralink, and The Boring Company.

This marked him as the richest person ever recorded according to Forbes' 2026 annual Billionaires List, which estimated his peak net worth at $839 billion. Beyond business, Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, rebranded it as X, and positioned it as a platform prioritizing free speech and evolving toward an "everything app" with integrated payments and communication. He briefly co-led the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the U.S. federal government in 2025 alongside Vivek Ramaswamy before stepping down amid reported differences.