Elon Reeve Musk, born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa, stands as one of the most influential and polarizing figures of the modern era. As the CEO and largest shareholder of Tesla and SpaceX, he has redefined the landscape of electric vehicles, commercial spaceflight, and artificial intelligence. Since 2025, he has held the title of the wealthiest person in the world, and in June 2026, he briefly became the first individual to achieve a net worth exceeding one trillion US dollars, a milestone reached following the initial public offering of SpaceX. While a subsequent stock collapse brought his fortune back below that threshold, Forbes estimated his net worth at a staggering US$864 billion as of August 2026.

Born into the wealthy Musk family, his early life in South Africa was marked by a move to Canada in 1989, where he gained citizenship through his mother, who was born in Ontario. He pursued higher education at the University of Pennsylvania, earning bachelor’s degrees in 1997 before relocating to California to launch his entrepreneurial career. His first major venture, Zip2, a web software company, was co-founded in 1995 and sold in 1999 for a substantial profit. He then co-founded X.com, an e-commerce payment system, which merged with Confinity in March 2000 to form PayPal. The company was acquired by eBay in 2002, a deal that provided Musk with the capital to pursue his more ambitious visions. He also became an American citizen in 2002.

In 2002, Musk founded SpaceX, assuming the roles of CEO and chief engineer, with the goal of making space travel more affordable and accessible. The company has since pioneered reusable rocket technology and commercial spaceflight, fundamentally altering the aerospace industry. In 2004, he joined Tesla as an early investor, becoming its CEO and product architect in 2008. Under his leadership, Tesla transformed from a niche startup into a global leader in electric vehicles, pushing the entire automotive industry toward electrification. His ventures expanded further with the co-founding of OpenAI in 2015 to advance artificial intelligence research, though he later left the organization. His growing dissatisfaction with its direction during the AI boom of the 2020s led him to establish xAI, which became a subsidiary of SpaceX in 2026. In 2022, he acquired Twitter for $44 billion, making significant and controversial changes to the platform, including rebranding it as X in 2023. His other companies include Neuralink, a neurotechnology firm co-founded in 2016, and the Boring Company, a tunneling enterprise founded in 2017. In November 2025, Tesla shareholders approved a $1 trillion pay package for Musk, contingent on achieving milestones such as a market capitalization of $8.5 trillion over the following decade.

Musk’s influence has extended into the political arena. He was the largest donor in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, supporting Donald Trump. Following Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, Musk served as a Senior Advisor to the President and the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). He left the administration in May 2025, shortly after which he engaged in a public feud with Trump. His political activities, which include support for global far-right figures and parties, have made him a deeply polarizing figure. He has faced criticism for making unscientific and misleading statements, including spreading COVID-19 misinformation, promoting conspiracy theories, and affirming antisemitic, white nationalist, racist, and transphobic comments. His acquisition of Twitter was also controversial, as his pledge to decrease censorship led to a documented rise in hate speech and misinformation on the platform. His role in the second Trump administration, particularly regarding DOGE’s cuts to agencies like the US Agency for International Development (USAID), attracted significant public backlash. Despite the controversies, Musk remains a dominant force in technology and business, continually pushing the boundaries of what is possible in space exploration, transportation, and artificial intelligence.