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Elon Musk (born June 28, 1971) is an Internet, rocket launch, and electric car entrepreneur.
Introduction Musk was born and grew up in South Africa, the son of a South African engineer and New York City dietitian and model. He left home at 17 for Kingston, Ontario where he enrolled at Queen's University. He left South Africa without his parents' support, in part because he wished to avoid compulsory service in the South African Defence Force. He was awarded a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania, where he received an undergraduate business degree from Wharton, staying on another year to finish a second degree in physics. Musk lives in Bel-Air, California, with his wife Justine.* Entrepreneurial activities In 1995, Musk went on to a graduate program in energy physics at Stanford, in which he stayed exactly two days before dropping out to start Zip2, which provided online content publishing software for news organizations. In 1999, Compaq's AltaVista division acquired Zip2 for US$307 million in cash and US$34 million in stock options.* Elon and his brother Kimbal held about 12 percent of Zip2 at the time. In March 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services and email payments company. One year later, X.com acquired Confinity, originally a company formed to beam money between Palm Pilots *, and the combined entity focused on email payments through the PayPal domain, acquired as part of Confinity. In February 2001, X.com changed its legal name to PayPal. In October 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for US$1.5 billion in stock.* Before its sale, Musk, the company's largest shareholder, owned 11.7% of PayPal's shares.* In June 2002, Musk founded his third company, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), of which he is currently the CEO and CTO. SpaceX develops and manufactures space launch vehicles, with an emphasis on low cost and high reliability. The company's first two launch vehicles are the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rockets. In addition to his business activities in entrepreneurial space, Musk is an early round investor in and Chairman of the Board of Tesla Motors, a high performance electric sportscar startup company.* He is also an early round investor in and Chairman of the Board of SolarCity, a photovoltaics products and services startup company.* Musk's fortune is estimated at US$328 million.* Non-space-related activities Musk is Chairman of the Musk Foundation, which focuses its philanthropic efforts on science education, pediatric health, and clean energy. Space-related activities In 2001, Musk had plans for a "Mars Oasis" project, which would land a miniature experimental greenhouse on Mars, containing food crops growing on Martian regolith.* He put this project on hold when he discovered that launch costs would dwarf the mission development and construction costs for the project, and decided to work on lowering launch costs by founding SpaceX. Musk is a member of the Board of Directors of the Planetary Society and the Board of Trustees of The X-Prize Foundation. Interests Musk owns a McLaren F1 sports car worth approximately $1 million, and a Czech-built Aero L-39 trainer worth approximately $250,000. * The 1994 model Falcon 900 aircraft used in the film, "Thank You For Smoking" (Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2006) is registered to Mr. Musk (N900SX). The only Falcon 900 listed on a popular aviation sales site with a published price, a 1989 model, sports a $16.9 million asking price. Mr. Musk is listed as an Executive Producer of the film. Education | ||||||||
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