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Elon Musk (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa) South African-born
American entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment firm PayPal and
formed SpaceX, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He was also one of the first
significant investors in, as well as chief executive officer of, the electric
car manufacturer Tesla. In addition, Musk acquired Twitter (later X) in 2022.
Early life
Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early
talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a video game and sold
it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left
South Africa because he was unwilling to support apartheid through compulsory
military service and because he sought the greater economic opportunities available in
the United States.
PayPal and SpaceX
Musk attended Queen鈥檚 University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he transferred to
the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he received bachelor鈥檚 degrees
in physics and economics in 1997. He enrolled in graduate school in physics at Stanford
University in California, but he left after only two days because he felt that
the Internet had much more potential to change society than work in physics. In 1995 he
founded Zip2, a company that provided maps and business directories to online
newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307
million, and Musk then founded an online financial services company, X.com, which
later became PayPal, which specialized in transferring money online. The online
auction eBay bought PayPal in 2002 for $1.5 billion.