On the 12th of this month Elon Musk achaieved a stunning milestone that no businessman on the earth can hope to emulate. His assets have crossed 1.1 trillion USD which is a mind boggling number indeed.
Elon Reeve
Musk was born in 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa. He is of British and Dutch
ancestry. His mother comes from Canada and therefore he holds both the South
African and Canadian citizenships since birth.
Elon Musk’s
father is a South African Chemical engineer, Pilot, Sailor, Consultant, Emerald
dealer and property developer. So Elon was born into an affluent family. His
mother too was a model.
His maternal grandfather
died in a plane crash when Musk was a toddler was a Canadian born American used
to treat neurological disorders. He was an aviator and died in a plane crash.
He was a political activist in the Technocracy movement which advocated
Technocracy as a system of Government rather than representative democracy.
After his parents
divorced in 1979 Elon aged 9 chose to live with his father because he was
having a set of Encyclopaedia Britannica and a Computer. However, he later
regretted his decision. Elon for some time studied in a wilderness school where
bullying was considered a virtue and children were encouraged to fight for
rations.
In one such
incident after Elon had a verbal fight with another pupil, he was beaten up and
was thrown down the concrete floor leading to severe injury due to which he had
to be hospitalized.
He was an
avid reader of books and had attributed his success to having read some specific
books. When aged 10, he developed an interest in computing and video games and
learnt p0rgramming from VIC-20 user manual.
At the age of
12 years he sold his BASIC base game to a magazine for USD 500. Musk graduated
from Pretoria Boys High School. He was a decent but unexceptional student. Musk
applied for a Canadian Passport to avoid compulsory military service in South
Africa.
Musk went to Canada
in 1989 and worked as a farm hand and in a lumber mill. In 1990 he entered a
Canadian University and 2 years later he transferred to the University of
Pennsylvania where he studied till 1995. The university only awarded him the
degree in 1997.
Musk decided
to join the internet boom in the 1990’s applying for a job in Netscape for which
he never received a response.
In 1995 Musk,
his brother Kimbal & Greg Koun founded the web software company Zip2 with
funding from Angel investors. The Company developed and marketed an internet
city guide for the newspaper publishing industry with maps, directions &
yellow pages.
The company got
contracts from the New York Times & the Chicago Tribune. Musk’s attempt to
become the CEO of the Company was thwarted by the Board. Finally Compaq acquired
Zip2 for 307million USD. Of that Musk received USD 22 million.
In 1999 Musk
co-founded X.com an online financial services and email payment Company. The
investors in the Company regarded Musk as inexperienced and replaced him with
another CEO.
The following
year X.Com merged with the online Bank Confinity to avoid competition.
Confinity had its own payments service named PayPal which was more popular than
X.Com’s service. Musk was the CEO in the merged Company. Musk openly preferred
Microsoft’s software to Unix which caused a rift in the Company and Thiel one
of the founders of Confinity resigned.
The resulting
technological issues and the lack of a coherent business model from Musk made
the investors push out Musk as CEO and brought in Thiel again. Under Thiel the
Company focussed on the PayPal Service and was renamed PayPal in 2001.
In 2002,
PayPal was purchased by eBay for 1.5 billion USD and Musk the largest investor
in the Company received 176 million USD. Much later in the year 2017 Musk purchased
X.com from PayPal for an undisclosed amount due to detrimental reasons.
In the year 2001
Musk got involved with the Mars society that wanted to plant a growth chamber on
Mars for plants to grow. For that he negotiated for ICBM’s for launching the chambers
with Moscow but nothing came out of it. SPACE X: Musk decided to found a company for cheap
rockets, and then with USD 100 million he founded the Space X in May 2002 and
was the Company’s CEO and Chief Engineer.
Space X
launched its first Falcon -1 rocket into space in 2006 but it failed to reach
its orbit. After that there were 2 more launch failures of Falcon-1 and Musk
almost went bankrupt. Space X finally succeeded in launching the Falcon-1 successfully
in the year 2008.
Later that
year NASA awarded Space X with a contract of USD 1.6 billion for Falcon-9
launched flights to the International Space Station. In 2012, the Dragon
Vehicle of Space X docked with the ISS, which was a first for any commercial spacecraft.
Working for reusable
rockets, in 2015 Space X has successfully landed the first stage of the Space X
Falcon on a landing platform. Later such landings were achieved in ocean based
recovery platforms. In 2018 Space X launched a Space X rocket with a heavy
payload.
In 2020,
Space X launched a crewed flight; the Demo-2 becoming the first private company
to place astronauts into orbit and dock with the ISS. NASA has awarded Space X a
contract for USD 843 million in 2024 to build a spacecraft that NASA would use
to deorbit the ISS after it completes its lifespan.
STARLINK-In 2015
Space X developed the Starlink constellation of low orbit earth satellites for
internet access through satellites. The first stage constellation of Starlink
was deployed in 2019. As of May 2025, over 7600 Starlink satellites are operational.
They comprise of 65% of all the satellites deployed on earth. The total cost of
the decade long project is estimated by Space X to cost USD 10 billion. A sat
phone can be used anywhere on the earth including deep forests.
During the
Russian invasion of Ukraine Musk provided free Starlink services to Ukraine
which cost Space X 400 million USD in 2025 alone. In 2023 when Ukraine
requested for activation of Starlink services over Crimea to aid an attack
against the Russian navy, but Musk refused citing a nuclear response from
Russia’s side.
TESLA: This Company
was established in the year 2003 and then had nothing to do with Musk. Both the
founders of the Company played a big role in it prior to Musk’s involvement. Musk
invested USD 6.35 million in 2004 and became the majority shareholder and
joined Tesla’s Board as Chairman. Following a series of escalating conflicts in
the Board in 2007 and the following financial crisis of 2008 n account of
Subprime one of the founders was ousted from the Company in 2008 and Musk
assumed the role of CEO and product architect of the Company in 2008. A 2009
lawsuit designated Musk as a co-founder of the Company along with 3 others.
Tesla began
delivery of its electric Sports car “Roadster” in the year 2008 with sales of
2500 vehicles. Tesla then launched several EV models including the 4 door sedan
“Model S” in 2012, “Crossover Model X” in 2015, “Model 3” in 2017 and the “Crossover
Model Y” in 2020 & a “Cybertruck” in 2023.
Tesla has
also constructed multiple Lithium Ion battery and electric vehicle factories called
Giga factories. In May 2020 Musk
resigned as Chairman of Tesla Board as part of a settlement for a suit.
Tesla’s
public offering came up in the year 2010 with the share quoting at USD 1.28 on 2nd
July 2010. Today the share goes at 406 USD which is over 317 times in 16 years’
time or about 20 times each year. This share was quoting only at USD 16 in 2019
when it started its climb. So from 2019 onwards it appreciated by over 25
times. In the last 1 year though, it appreciated only by 23.5%. Now Space X’s listing
is taking Musk’s fortune higher.
Tesla sold
16.36 lac vehicles in 2025 globally which was a 8.6% decline in sales from 2024
and also from 1923 when it sold 18.08 lac vehicles. Tesla had about 135,000
employees on its rolls and a net income of USD 3.8 billion in 2025.
SOLAR
CITY/TESLA ENERGY: Musk gave the concept and financial concept for Solar City
founded by his cousins in 2006. By 2013 Solar City was the 2nd
largest provider of Solar Systems in the US. Tesla acquired Solar City in 2016
for USD 2 billion and merged it with its battery Company to form Tesla Energy. After
this merger led to a drop of 10% in Tesla’s stock price there were lawsuits on
Musk and the Company by the shareholders alleging that it was done to benefit Musk.
Excluding Musk, all other Tesla Directors settled the suit in 2020. Ultimately as
the sole remaining defendant Musk won the case.
NEURALINK: In
2016 Musk founded this Company with an investment of 100 million USD. The aim
of the Company is to integrate he human brain with AI by creating devices that
are embedded in the brain. The Company also wants to develop devices to treat neurological
disorders like spinal cord injuries. In 2023 the FDA approved clinical trials
of such devices for 6 year human trials. However, in its earlier trials in 2021
in the University of California on Macaque monkeys, the Company realised a
video with a macaque monkey playing a video game after neural implants. Some of
the trails were alleged to have killed some monkeys and that led to a
controversy. Currently a federal probe is on-going on the issue.
TWITTER/X
CORP: In 2017 Musk expressed interest in buying Twitter. By 2022, he owned 9%
stake in the Company. By 2022 he bought Twitter for USD 44 billion and became
its CEO after firing the earlier CEO Parag Agarwal. Later he stepped down as
CEO and became the Executive Chairman and Chief Technology Officer. Musk is
mired in controversies regarding Twitter and it continues to do badly.
Apart from
the above Companies, he was also engaged in a few others which are
insignificant to be mentioned here.
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