Born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa to Maye Musk, a Canadian model and the oldest woman to star in a Cover Girl campaign, Elon Reeve Musk has challenged the status quo to become the world’s richest man with net worth of $400billion.
Despite his parents’ divorce when he was 10,Musk developed an interest in computer and taught himself how to program. When he was 12 years old, Musk developed his own game called Blastar that he sold for $500.
At the age 17, in 1988, Elon moved to Canada against his parents’ wishes to attend university and avoid mandatory service in the South African military. He obtained his Canadian citizenship that year, in part because he felt it would be easier to obtain U.S. citizenship via that path. Elon moved to the United States a few years later and officially became an American citizen in 2002.
“I came to North America because I felt this was where there was opportunity to do great things in technology,” he said in 2013.
Musk’s move to Canada coincided with his enrollment in Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He studied there for two years before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania in 1992. He graduated five years later with bachelor’s degrees in economics and physics and joined the rising tech wave.
Entrepreneurial Ventures:
Musk co-founded Zip2 and a digital payment company named X.com, which later became PayPal. PayPal and X.com (later PayPal), which revolutionized online payments. He then founded SpaceX and Tesla, a company focused on electric vehicles and renewable energy
Musk’s first major financial windfall came via the sale of Zip2 in 1999, which earned him $22 million for his stake. He invested that money into X.com, which turned into a$165million following eBay’s purchase of the renamed PayPal in 2002 and allowed Musk to earn his first billion.
Through SpaceX and Tesla, Musk has achieved notable advancements in sustainable space exploration as well as driver less transportation with the research and launch of full self driving software inventions.
Musk is the richest person in the world, a title he has held at various points since early 2021. He regularly swaps spots with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and French businessman Bernard Arnault, who is the founder and CEO of luxury goods conglomerate LVMH
Musk became the first person in history to boast a net worth of $400 billion or more in December 2024. The entrepreneur’s net worth grew by more than $200 billion that year.
As of May 2, 2025 Forbes Billionaires list Elon Musk tops the richest individuals list which includes Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Bernard Arnault, Steve Ballmer, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin.
Musk, who became an American citizen in 2002, then moved into the transportation industry via his most recognizable companies. He diversified his holdings in 2022 by purchasing Twitter, which he renamed X. A vehement supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump, Musk is head of the Department of Government Efficiency, the headline-grabbing advisory group under Trump’s second administration.
