Elon Musk

**Elon Reeve Musk**  (born June 28, 1971) is a South African-Canadian-American businessman and entrepreneur. He moved to Canada and later became a U.S. citizen. He was the Commissioner of the Department of Government Efficiency for a few months in 2025 during the second Donald Trump administration. He became rich through several technology projects, including an online finance company which merged with PayPal in the year 2000. Musk has been the wealthiest person in the world since 2021, according to both the _Bloomberg Billionaires Index_ and _Forbes_ real-time billionaires list; with an estimated net worth of US$500 billion, as recently as October 2025. In 2021, he was Time Person of the Year.

Elon is the current CEO & Chief Product Architect of Tesla, Inc., a company that makes electric vehicles. He is also the CEO & CTO of SpaceX, an aerospace company. In 2022, he became the owner of the social media site Twitter which he later gave a new name known as X after buying it for USD $44 billion.

In November 2024, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said that Musk would become a leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) alongside Vivek Ramaswamy but Ramaswamy stepped down before the Department was created.

## Early life and career

Elon Musk was born to a Canadian mother and a South African father in Pretoria, South Africa, on June 28, 1971. His parents divorced in 1981 and he mainly lived with his father in different places in South Africa. He went to Waterkloof House Preparatory School and graduated from Pretoria Boys High School. He then moved to Canada in 1988 when he was 17 after obtaining Canadian citizenship through his mother, nutritionist and model Maye Musk. He got it before his South African military service was to begin. He felt that it would be easier to emigrate to the United States from Canada than from South Africa. Musk and his brother started Zip2, a software company, in 1995. In 1999 he sold it and became a millionaire. He then started X.com, which merged with the company Confinity to make PayPal. X.com was then renamed to PayPal, and he focused on the growing part of the company. He then started SpaceX and became the CEO of Tesla.

## Education

He spent two years at the Queen's School of Business in Kingston, Ontario. He moved to the University of Pennsylvania where he earned a bachelor's degree in economics from the Wharton School. He stayed a year to finish his second bachelor's degree in physics. Then he moved to California to attempt to get a PhD in applied physics at Stanford but he left the program after only two days because he wanted to pursue his entrepreneurial aspirations. These were to start businesses in the internet, renewable energy and outer space. He became an American citizen in 2002.

## Projects

At the end of 2017, Musk founded The Boring Company which focuses on tunneling and infrastructure. He mentioned Los Angeles traffic as the reason for starting this company. In March 2017 Elon Musk announced he had started another company that aimed to merge human brains with computers called Neuralink.

In April 2018 he was worth over $10 billion, making him the 37th most wealthy American. Musk is also known for helping design and create the Falcon Heavy rocket, which successfully launched on February 6, 2019.

In 2022, Musk bought Twitter after complaining about Internet censorship and criticizing Twitter for suspending the Babylon Bee. During his first few weeks as CEO, he attracted criticism from some people. Many of them criticize him for laying off many employees at once, as well as appearing to have no interest in moderating hate speech.

## Politics

In November 2024, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced that Musk would become a leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a governmental advisory body, with Vivek Ramaswamy. Though Ramaswamy later declined, planning to run for governor of Ohio.

On 20 January 2025, Trump, who just became President of the United States, made Musk the sole Administrator of DOGE. That same day during an inauguration day rally, he performed a Nazi salute. However, Musk later stated it was a Roman salute, which was also used by fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

On May 28, 2025, Musk announced that he would leave the Trump Administration as planned when the special government employee's 130 day deadline expired. He officially left DOGE during a joint Oval Office press conference with President Trump on May 30, 2025. He has criticized the Trump administration's Big Beautiful Bill after leaving office, calling it a "disgusting abomination."

## Other websites

- Forbes profile

## Infobox (officeholder)

- **image**: The_White_House_-_54409525537_(cropped).jpg
- **alt**: Portrait of Elon Musk, a white, middle-age man with short, dark hair, wearing a black suit
- **caption**: Musk in 2025
- **office**: Senior Advisor to the President of the United States, Senior Advisor to the President
- **president**: Donald Trump
- **term start**: January 20, 2025
- **alongside**: Massad Boulos
- **predecessor**: Tom Perez
- **term end**: May 30, 2025
- **birth name**: Elon Reeve Musk
- **birth place**: Pretoria, South Africa
- **education**: University of Pennsylvania (Bachelor of Arts, BA, Bachelor of Science, BS)
- **partner**: Grimes (2018–2021)
- **children**: At least 14 (including Vivian Wilson)
- **father**: Errol Musk
- **mother**: Maye Musk
- **relatives**: Musk family
- **signature**: Elon Musk Signature.svg
- **party**: Independent (United States), Independent