Photograph of Elon Musk in 2011 — Musk in 2011, photograph by David Shankbone (CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons).

FLIGHT LOG · 1971–PRESENT

Biography

From a bookish kid in Pretoria to the founder of the world's most prolific rocket company — documented, dated, disputed where disputed.

Childhood in South Africa (1971–1988)

Elon Reeve Musk was born June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa, the eldest of three children of engineer Errol Musk and dietitian and model Maye Musk (née Haldeman). His younger siblings are Kimbal Musk and Tosca Musk.

As a boy he was a voracious reader — science fiction, engineering manuals, and by his own account the Encyclopedia Britannica — and a self-taught programmer. At age 12 (1983) he wrote a video game, Blastar, and sold it to the South African magazine PC and Office Technology for a reported $500.

Schooling was difficult. He has described being bullied and once hospitalized after an attack by schoolmates. He has also spoken about having Asperger-like traits; in 2021, hosting Saturday Night Live, he publicly stated he has Asperger’s syndrome.

Accounts of the family’s wealth and of Errol Musk’s reported emerald-mine interests are disputed — see Mythology vs. Record. What is documented: at 17, Musk moved to Canada on his mother’s citizenship to avoid South African military service and to study in North America.

Canada, university, and the first fortunes (1988–1999)

1988–1989: Moved to Canada, worked odd jobs, and enrolled at Queen’s University in Ontario.
1992: Transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1997 with a bachelor’s degree in physics and a bachelor of science in economics from Wharton.
1995: Briefly attended Stanford’s applied-physics PhD program, then dropped out after two days to join the internet boom.
1995: With brother Kimbal, founded Zip2, an online city-guide business for newspapers. The brothers have said their father provided about $28,000 to start — a figure Errol Musk has contested in interviews (disputed; see Mythology vs. Record).
1999: Compaq acquired Zip2 for $307 million; Musk received a reported $22 million for his stake.

X.com and PayPal (1999–2002)

Musk founded the online bank X.com in 1999. In 2000 it merged with Peter Thiel’s Confinity (makers of PayPal), forming PayPal. Musk was briefly CEO before being ousted by the board in 2000 while traveling; Thiel took over.

In October 2002, eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion in stock. Musk, the largest shareholder, received a reported ~$180 million (commonly cited figure; some accounts cite the proceeds as about $165 million after taxes — the exact after-tax figure is not public).

He has said he put $100 million into SpaceX, $70 million into Tesla, and $10 million into SolarCity — and had to borrow money for rent. That allocation, quoted from his interviews circa 2012–2014, is consistent across retellings.

SpaceX (2002–present)

In 2001 Musk joined the Mars Society and floated Mars Oasis, a project to send a greenhouse to Mars. In 2001–2002 he traveled to Russia to buy refurbished ICBMs as cheap launch vehicles; the Russians reportedly declined to sell.

So he founded his own rocket company. Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) was founded in 2002 (incorporated March 2002). Early milestones:

2006: Won a NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services contract; in December 2008, after three Falcon 1 failures and with weeks of cash left, NASA awarded SpaceX a $1.6 billion Commercial Resupply Services contract — the contract Musk credits with saving the company. Christmas Eve 2008: the Falcon 1’s fourth launch succeeded.
December 8, 2010: Falcon 9’s first successful flight; Dragon became the first commercial spacecraft to orbit and return.
May 25, 2012: Dragon berthed with the ISS — the first commercial spacecraft to reach the station.
December 21, 2015: First successful Falcon 9 first-stage landing at Landing Zone 1.
May 30, 2020: Crew Dragon Demo-2 carried NASA astronauts to the ISS — the first crewed commercial orbital flight.
2023–2024: Starship integrated flight tests began; October 13, 2024 (Flight Test 5) saw the first “chopstick” catch of the Super Heavy booster.
2025: SpaceX remained the world’s most active launch provider and, in a private transaction valuing it around $350 billion, the most valuable private company.

Tesla (2004–present)

Tesla Motors was founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Musk led the $6.5 million Series A in February 2004, joined the board as chairman, and became CEO in October 2008 — after which Eberhard departed. (The “founder” title is disputed; a 2009 settlement allowed Musk, Eberhard, Tarpenning, and two early engineers to call themselves co-founders.)

2008: Roadster deliveries began; Tesla nearly collapsed during the financial crisis — Musk has said the company was weeks from death.
2010: IPO (June 29, 2010) raised $226 million.
2012: Model S launched; 2015: Model X; 2017: Model 3 (mass-market push); 2020: Model Y. Tesla became the best-selling EV maker in the world and briefly the most valuable automaker by market cap.
2016: Tesla acquired SolarCity (founded 2006 by Musk’s cousins with his funding) for $2.6 billion; Musk was cleared in a 2022 Delaware court challenge to the deal.
2019: Cybertruck unveiled November 21 (the “bulletproof” window shattered on stage).
2021–present: Full Self-Driving (Supervised) rollouts, robotaxi announcements (2024), and the Optimus humanoid robot program.

The other companies

OpenAI (co-founded December 2015; resigned from the board February 2018 citing a Tesla conflict of interest; later publicly critical of its for-profit turn).
Neuralink (founded 2016; first public event July 2019; FDA approval for human trials May 2023; first human implant, Noland Arbaugh, January 2024).
The Boring Company (founded December 2016; tunnel projects including the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop).
Twitter / X (acquired October 27, 2022, for $44 billion; rebranded to X, July 2023).
xAI (announced July 2023; launched the Grok AI model; acquired X in March 2025 in an all-stock deal).

Details on each: Companies.

Personal life

Musk has been married and divorced three times (to Justine Wilson, 2000–2008, and twice to Talulah Riley, 2010–2016). He has at least 14 children, including twins and triplets, with Justine Wilson, Grimes (Claire Boucher), and Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis. Child custody matters have been reported in court filings. This site records the public record; private family details are kept to what is documented.

Source notes

Chronology drawn from company filings and announcements (Tesla, SpaceX, NASA), published interviews (including 60 Minutes, 2012; Wait But Why, 2015; New York Times, 2020), the SEC v. Musk filings, and the biographies listed on sources. Disputed items are flagged where they occur and examined on Mythology vs. Record.