How Elon Musk made his money: in the journey of the richest man in the world

Musk's prosperity is built by a number of companies and investments with high operations. The Tesla boss was born in Pretoria, South Africa before moving to Canada in 1989. He completed the University of Pennsylvania and moved to California to pursue business companies.

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This is how Elon Musk earned his money

Travel to Silicon Valley

Musk's father, Errol Musk, was an electromechanical engineer and real estate developer while his mother Maye was a model and nutritionist. The billionaire started coding at the age of 10 when he bought his first computer. The 53-year-old made his first sale within two years and sold a video game that he created for $ 500.

Musk left South Africa at the age of 17 and moved to Canada in 1989 to avoid mandatory military service. He briefly visited the Queen's University in Ontario before moving to the University of Pennsylvania and acquired a degree in physics and business in 1995. After he in a physics -h. The program at Stanford University brought Musk out after two days.

ZIP2 and PayPal

Elon Musk's entrepreneurial journey began with ZIP2, a software company that was founded in 1995 with his brother Kimbal. ZIP2 developed online city leaders for newspapers. In 1999, Compaq Zip2 acquired $ 307 million and achieved 22 million US dollars for its 7%share.

In 1999, Musk was a co-founder of X.com, an online payment company. After the merger with conceal, led by Peter Thiel, the PayPal company became. Although Musk was displaced in 2000 in 2000 due to strategic disagreements, he remained a great shareholder. When Ebay PayPal acquired for 1.5 billion US dollars in 2002, 11.7% of the 11.7% -T participation after taxes earned him 175.8 million dollars.

Spaceex

Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies Corp. in 2002 (SpaceX) and aimed to reduce space costs. SpaceX was originally on skepticism and was close to bankruptcy until 2008, after three failed rocket starts from 2008 were saved a successful fourth start and a NASA contract of 1.6 billion dollars in 2008. Today SpaceX has a value of 350 billion US dollars (offer in December 2024), with Muschus owning 42%.

Tesla

Musk entered Tesla Motors in 2004 as the main investor and chairman of Tesla Motors and became CEO in 2008. In 2003 Tesla was founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. The early investment of Musk in the amount of $ 6.5 million and the subsequent financing rounds was critical during Tesla in 2008 when it lost $ 10 million per month.

The Tesla share rose over 1,100%from 2017 to 2022, which is due to the increased production and profitability.

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X and other undertakings

In 2022, Musk Twitter acquired for $ 44 billion and named it X. The deal, which was controversial due to layoffs and increased misinformation, fell from X to 22.7 billion US dollars by August 2024, with Musks being 79% involved. His startup for artificial intelligence, Xai, founded in 2023, had a value of 50 billion US dollars in November 2024, with Muschus 54%. Smaller activities such as Neuralink (brain implants) and the Boring Company (tunneling) have also contributed to the wealth of Musk.

Musk's net assets reached a high point of $ 400 billion in December 2024 after the Tesla share had risen after the election to Trumps by March 2025 by $ 126 billion, since Tesla's decline in profits of 70% and public counter-reactions to Musk's political ties.

The billionaire describes himself as a “bararm”, 58% of his Tesla shares pledged up to 3.5 billion US dollars for loans.