No living entrepreneur divides opinion like Elon Musk. To admirers he is the real-life inventor pushing humanity toward Mars and electric cars. To critics he is a reckless provocateur. Either way, his story is one of the most remarkable business sagas of the modern era. This is the complete history of Elon Musk, from a lonely childhood in South Africa to running Tesla (TSLA), SpaceX, and an AI empire.
The Early Years: Pretoria to America
Born in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1971, Musk was a bookish, often bullied child who taught himself to code and sold his first video game at age 12. Determined to reach America, he moved first to Canada, then to the US, studying physics and economics at the University of Pennsylvania before briefly starting a PhD at Stanford, which he quit after two days to chase the internet boom.
Zip2 and PayPal: the First Fortunes
In 1995 he co-founded Zip2, an online city-guide business, which sold in 1999 for more than $300 million. He rolled his winnings into X.com, an online bank that merged with a rival to become PayPal. When eBay bought PayPal in 2002, Musk walked away with around $180 million, the capital that would fund everything that followed.
SpaceX and Tesla: the Big Bets
In 2002 he founded SpaceX with the audacious goal of making humanity multiplanetary, and nearly went bankrupt before its rockets finally worked. In 2004 he invested in and soon led Tesla, betting that electric cars could go mainstream. Both companies were repeatedly on the brink of failure, especially in the 2008 crisis, before becoming dominant: SpaceX with reusable rockets and the Starlink satellite network, and Tesla as the world's most valuable automaker.
Expanding the Empire
Musk's ambitions kept multiplying: SolarCity in solar energy, Neuralink in brain-computer interfaces, The Boring Company in tunnels, and later xAI, his artificial-intelligence company behind the Grok chatbot, which I covered in Grok's recent controversy. In 2022 he bought Twitter for $44 billion and renamed it X, turning it into one of his most controversial ventures.
Richest Man, and Political Player
Along the way, Musk became the world's richest person, his fortune tied largely to Tesla and SpaceX. In 2025 he stepped into government, leading the DOGE efficiency effort under President Trump, before a dramatic public feud. The two later reconciled, and in 2026 Musk returned to help lead the Pentagon's study of future warfare, as I covered in Elon Musk's return to Washington.
Frequently Asked Questions
How did Elon Musk make his first money?
By selling Zip2 in 1999 and then PayPal to eBay in 2002, which gave him around $180 million to fund SpaceX and Tesla.
What companies does Elon Musk run?
Tesla, SpaceX, xAI (maker of Grok), Neuralink, and The Boring Company, along with the social platform X.
How did Elon Musk become the richest person?
Mainly through his large stakes in Tesla and SpaceX, whose soaring valuations made him the world's wealthiest individual.
The Bottom Line
Elon Musk's history is a chain of enormous, improbable bets, electric cars, reusable rockets, AI, that repeatedly nearly failed before reshaping entire industries. Whatever you make of the man, his companies have changed how the world drives, launches rockets, and thinks about the future, and he is now one of the most consequential, and polarizing, figures in both business and government. For investors, the clearest way to own a piece of the Musk story remains Tesla, its fortunes still tied tightly to his restless ambition.
This article is for informational purposes only and is not financial advice. Always do your own research before investing.
