Who is Elon Musk? Bio and Age of Tesla and SpaceX CEO

Who is Elon Musk? This question may seem paradoxical, given that we are talking about the richest man in the world according to Forbes, who, for some time now, has been filling the pages of newspapers around the world, making people talk not only about his entrepreneurial activity, but also about his political activity, with an official role in the second Trump administration.

But how many people really know who Elon Musk is? Where was he born, his age, what are his companies and what does his political activity consist of?

So let’s clarify right away that Elon Musk is a South African entrepreneur, engineer and innovator naturalized American, known for being one of the most influential and controversial tycoons of our time.

Since he bought Twitter - later changing the name of the social network to X -, he has begun to increasingly involve himself in politics, financing and supporting Donald Trump in the last elections, so much so that the new president later rewarded him with a role in his administration.

At the same time, the tycoon has built a strong relationship with italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni - but there is also a 1.5 billion contract that Italy could stipulate with Starlink at stake -, he has expressed his support for the far-right German party AfD in view of the elections in Germany and, also dealing with affairs across the Channel, he has attacked the British Prime Minister Keir Stramer.

Many people therefore think that Musk has some sort of plan to influence the elections in the main countries in the world, perhaps even to have an economic benefit if his horses were to then turn out to be winners as happened with Trump; others instead believe that he is preparing the ground for his entry into politics that could happen in the 2028 US elections.

Theories and hypotheses that have made Elon Musk the most talked about - but also appreciated by many - man of the moment: let’s look at his biography to try to better understand who this visionary entrepreneur is who seems to be able to influence the fate of the entire world.

Elon Musk’s biography

Name: Elon Reeve Musk

Date of birth: June 28, 1971

Age: 53 years old

Where was he born: Pretoria (South Africa)

Nationality: South African and Canadian, naturalized American

Family: son of Maye Haldeman (dietician and former model) and Errol Musk (a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot and navigator, former co-owner of an emerald mine in Zambia); has a brother and a sister, his maternal grandfather was American

Private life: he had eleven children with three different women: his two ex-wives Justine Wilson and Talulah Riley as well as his ex-partner Grimes, a famous Canadian singer

Work: entrepreneur and politician

Health: in 2021 he declared that he suffers from Asperger’s syndrome

Fun facts: according to his father, the whole family supports Manchester United, even though he himself admitted that his son would like to buy Liverpool

Elon Musk’s wives and children

Elon Musk married Justine Wilson in 2000. After a difficult divorce, Musk met actress Talulah Riley and the couple married in 2010. They separated in 2012, but married again in 2013. Their relationship finally ended in divorce in 2016.

Elon Musk has five children with his ex-wife Justine Wilson. In 2002, his first child died at 10 weeks of age due to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Musk and Wilson would later have five more children together: a pair and a triplet of twins.

How Elon Musk was educated

Elon Musk is an extremely multifaceted and controversial figure, with a life and education path that has helped make him one of the most influential and well-known entrepreneurs in the world.

Childhood and adolescence

• Place of birth: Musk was born on June 28, 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa.
• Youthful interests: From an early age, he showed an intense intellectual curiosity. At 10, he became passionate about computers and taught himself to program. At just 12 years old, he created and sold a video game called Blastar for about $500.
• Education Experience: Musk’s childhood was not easy. He was an introverted child and was often bullied, sometimes violently, during his school years in South Africa.

College Education

• He briefly attended the University of Pretoria, but left South Africa at 17 to avoid mandatory military service and seek better opportunities.
• He moved to Canada in 1989 to study at Queen’s University in Ontario. There he spent two years and met Justine Wilson, his first wife.
• He later transferred to the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, where he earned two degrees: in Physics (Bachelor of Science) and in Economics from the prestigious Wharton School of Business.
• PhD: Not completed. In 1995, he enrolled in a doctorate in applied physics and materials science at Stanford University in California. However, he dropped out of the program after only two days to pursue his first entrepreneurial ventures, during the height of the Internet boom.

Elon Musk’s Career and Entrepreneurial Education

Musk did not follow a traditional academic training to become an entrepreneur or innovator. His personal growth was based on self-taught learning.
Musk has always said that “you can learn almost anything by reading books.” He studied engineering, physics, and even rocket design on his own, reading specialized textbooks.
He learned hands-on through his ventures, actively working on problems and developing innovative solutions.

Elon Musk’s Companies

His entrepreneurial experiences have been a crucial part of his practical education. Here are the Elon Musk companies.

• Zip2: Musk co-founded this online city guide software company in 1995. It was sold to Compaq for nearly $300 million.
• X.com/PayPal: He founded X.com, which merged with PayPal. PayPal was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002.
• SpaceX: Founded in 2002, Musk learned how to build rockets by studying aerospace engineering books and hiring the best talent in the industry.
• Tesla: He wasn’t the original founder, but he joined Tesla in 2004 and built it into one of the most innovative companies in the world.
• Neuralink: A company that develops brain-computer interfaces to connect the human brain to computers.
• The Boring Company: Specializes in building tunnels to reduce urban traffic.
• X: Elon Musk completed the acquisition of Twitter in October 2022 and subsequently undertook a series of significant changes to the platform. Among these, one of the most radical was the rebranding of Twitter to X in July 2023.
• OpenAI: Co-founder of this organization dedicated to the development of safe and accessible artificial intelligence.

Thanks to these companies, Elon Musk would currently be the richest man in the world with an personal net worth estimated at $416 billion. Just for comparison, the second in this special ranking is Jeff Bezos who is said to have $233 billion in the bank.

Elon Musk’s Political Activity

Elon Musk can now be considered a politician in all respects since, now that Donald Trump is officially the 47th president of the United States, he is expected to play a role in the administration.

In fact, Musk will take on the role of White House consultant with the task of cutting spending by federal agencies, a role created specifically for him.

However, Musk does not seem to want to settle for being part of the Trump administration, but through X he has harshly attacked the British Prime Minister Keir Stramer, has intervened several times on Italy by supporting the Meloni government and, in view of the elections in Germany, has decided to support AfD, the most right-wing party in the German panorama.

Original article published on Money.it Italy. Original title: Chi è Elon Musk? Bio ed età del CEO di Tesla e SpaceX