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By Akinwande Soji-Ojo
Elon Reeve Musk, the Chief Executive Officer of electric car manufacturer, Tesla, was born in Pretoria, South Africa, on June 28, 1971, to a South African father and Canadian mother.
Musk is an American entrepreneur and co-founder of electronic-payment firm, PayPal, and Chief Executive Officer/ Lead Designer of SpaceX, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He is also the founder of Neuralink and The Boring Company.
He grew up in South Africa, and immigrated to Canada at age 17. He landed in the United States as a transfer student to the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated with a Bachelor’s degrees in Physics and Economics.
Musk says he is working to revolutionise transportation both on Earth, through his electric car company, Tesla, and in space, via rocket producer SpaceX.
He bought microblogging site, Twitter, for $44 billion on April 25, 2022, after he had earlier disclosed a 9.1 per cent stake and threatened a hostile takeover.
SpaceX, Musk’s rocket company, is valued at $74 billion after a funding round in February 2021.
Musk was accepted to a graduate programme at Stanford University, but deferred attendance after two days to launch his first business software company, Zip2.
As a kid Musk taught himself to code; he sold his first game code, Blastar, to a magazine called PC and Office Technology for $500.
Musk has behaved in eccentric ways from time to time and has identified himself as having Asperger’s syndrome.
Musk was named the richest man in the world by Forbes in April 2022, with a net worth of $268.2 billion.