@Tristan, Elon Reeve Musk, born on June 28, 1971, is a prominent businessman and investor known for his role in founding numerous high-profile technology companies. He is the founder of SpaceX, Tesla, Inc., The Boring Company, and Neuralink, among others, and is one of the world’s wealthiest people, with an estimated net worth of $178 billion as of April 2024.
Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, and moved to Canada at the age of 18. Later, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania before settling in California in 1995. After briefly attending Stanford University, Musk dropped out to co-found software company Zip2 with his brother Kimbal; the company was later acquired by Compaq for $307 million. Musk also co-founded X.com, which eventually became PayPal and was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002. With the proceeds from PayPal’s sale, Musk founded SpaceX.
Additionally, Musk played a significant role in Tesla Motors, becoming an early investor in 2004, and holding roles as chairman, product architect, and eventually CEO. Other key ventures of Musk include SolarCity, which became Tesla Energy, OpenAI, Neuralink, and the Boring Company. More recently, in 2022, Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion and merged it into a newly created X Corp., rebranding the service as X the following year.
However, Musk has been a controversial figure due to his unscientific and misleading statements, including misinformation about COVID-19 and involvement in antisemitic conspiracy theories. His tenure at Twitter has also been contentious, with allegations of an increase in hate speech, misinformation, and large scale employee layoffs. For more extensive information, you can visit his Wikipedia page at this link.