Elon Musk's life, in 10 moments.

Born in Pretoria, South Africa

Elon Reeve Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, the eldest child of engineer Errol Musk and Canadian-born model and dietitian Maye Musk. He grew up with a younger brother, Kimbal, and a younger sister, Tosca. His parents first considered naming him Nice, after Nice, France, where he was conceived. They reconsidered to accommodate Maye's parents. Errol agreed the boy would take names from Maye's family: Elon, after her grandfather J. Elon Haldeman, and Reeve, the maiden name of her maternal grandmother.

Childhood reading and bullying

Elon Musk was a voracious reader who reportedly worked through the Encyclopaedia Britannica by about age nine. School was harder: he was severely bullied, and one beating left him in a hospital for days.

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Wrote and sold Blastar

Elon Musk taught himself to program on a Commodore VIC-20 and, at 12, wrote Blastar, a space shooter. The South African magazine PC and Office Technology published it in 1984 and paid him about $500.

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Emigrated to Canada at 17

At 17, Elon Musk left South Africa for Canada, using citizenship obtained through his Canadian-born mother. He arrived with little money, took a series of odd jobs, and in 1990 enrolled at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.

When I was seventeen, I got my Canadian passport. Three weeks later I was in Canada.

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University of Pennsylvania degrees

Elon Musk transferred to the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 and earned dual undergraduate degrees: a Bachelor of Arts in physics and a Bachelor of Science in economics from the Wharton School.

Left Stanford to start Zip2

Elon Musk moved to California for a graduate program in materials science at Stanford, then deferred his place almost immediately to co-found Zip2, an early online maps, directories, and publishing company.

Marriages and children

Elon Musk married the author Justine Wilson in January 2000. They had six children together before divorcing in 2008, and in 2010 he married the actress Talulah Riley.

Became a United States citizen

Elon Musk became a naturalized citizen of the United States, having moved from Canada to study and then to build his first companies.

Vowed to own no house

Elon Musk announced on Twitter, now X, that he would sell nearly all of his physical belongings and would not own a home, a public turn toward living with few possessions.

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Became the first trillionaire

Elon Musk became the first person worth $1 trillion on the day SpaceX began trading on the Nasdaq. Market moves took him under $1 trillion that summer, and he crossed it again on October 5, 2026.

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