1971 – Elon Reeve Musk is born on 28 June in Pretoria, South Africa, to dietitian-model Maye Haldeman and electromechanical engineer Errol Musk.
1975 – At four, he and cousin Lyndon Rive build small solid-fuel rockets; by nine he has read the Encyclopaedia Britannica cover to cover.
1981 – A Commodore VIC-20 arrives; he masters BASIC in three days and begins coding a space shooter titled Blastar.
1983 – Sells Blastar for US $500; a local newspaper brands the 12-year-old “the boy who programs dreams.”
1988 – Obtains Canadian citizenship through his mother, avoiding South African conscription and clearing the way for a later move to the United States.
Education
1989-1990 – Studies at Queen’s University, Kingston; finances tuition by reselling computer hardware from his dorm room, a hustle often cited in later Elon Musk news profiles.
1992-1995 – Transfers to the University of Pennsylvania, earning a BSc in physics and a BA in economics from Wharton–credentials central to Elon Musk education references. Room-mate Adeo Ressi recalls early sketches of a vacuum train eventually dubbed Hyperloop.
1995 – Enrolls in Stanford’s applied-physics PhD course but departs after 48 hours, opting to chase Internet opportunities–an inflection point in every timeline of Elon Musk age and ambition.
Career & Business
1995-1999 – Co-founds Zip2 with brother Kimbal; Compaq buys the company for US $307 million.
1999-2000 – Launches online bank X.com, merges it into PayPal; eBay acquires PayPal for US $1.5 billion in stock.
2002 → present – Creates SpaceX; milestones: Falcon 1 (2008), Falcon 9 (2010), Falcon Heavy (2018) and Starship’s maiden orbit (2023). The Starlink Elon Musk network surpasses 6 000 satellites by 2025, serving 70-plus nations and Ukrainian battlefronts.
2004 → present – Invests early in Elon Musk Tesla, becomes CEO in 2008, and steers Model S (2012), Model 3 (2017) and Cybertruck (2023) while erecting Gigafactories in Nevada, Shanghai, Berlin, Austin and Monterrey.
2013-2016 – Releases the Hyperloop Alpha white paper and co-founds OpenAI; exits the board amid conflict with Elon Musk AI ambitions at Tesla.
2016-2018 – Introduces Neuralink and The Boring Company; 20 000 “Not-a-Flamethrowers” sell out instantly, showcasing Elon Musk Twitter marketing chops.
2020-2023 – Adds US $1.5 billion in Bitcoin to Tesla’s balance sheet and tweets “Doge to the Moon,” lifting Dogecoin 800 percent. His SNL monologue confirms Asperger’s, answering “is Elon Musk autistic?”
2022-2023 – Acquires Twitter for US $44 billion, renames it Elon Musk X, restores banned accounts and unveils subscription tiers en route to an “everything app.”
2024 – Launches xAI and files plans for “Gigatexas Compute,” a dedicated AI-compute campus in Texas.
2025 – SpaceX secures NASA’s second lunar-lander option and Pentagon Starship cargo contracts; Tesla reveals a production robotaxi, dominating global tech headlines.
Politics
2013 – Advocates a U.S. carbon tax and donates across party lines.
2016-2017 – Serves on President-elect Trump’s economic councils, resigns after the Paris-accord withdrawal.
2021 – Moves Tesla headquarters to Texas, praising regulatory latitude.
2023 – Addresses House Republicans, decrying “woke mind virus”; X becomes a megaphone for conservative influencers.
2025 – Endorses Trump’s re-election, attends the second-term inauguration, pledging Starlink for rural America and Neuralink data for veterans, cementing his role as tech’s most prominent GOP ally.
Wealth
2012 – Joins the Forbes billionaires list at US $2 billion.
2021 – Rockets to a peak of US $320 billion as Tesla stock multiplies and SpaceX is valued at US $100 billion–prompting the question “how much money does Elon Musk have?”
2022-2023 – Funds the X takeover yet keeps a top-two berth on rich lists while Tesla’s market cap flirts with US $1 trillion.
2025 – Elon Musk net worth oscillates between US $190 billion and US $210 billion, roughly 23 percent tied to Tesla and 42 percent to SpaceX.
Charity & Philanthropy
2001 – Launches the Musk Foundation to support renewable energy and STEM education.
2007 – Gives US $10 million to SolarCity’s SolarStrong, fitting solar panels on low-income housing.
2012 – Pledges US $5 million to the Global Learning XPRIZE and donates US $1 million to restore Tesla’s Wardenclyffe lab.
2015 – Signs the Giving Pledge, vowing most of his fortune to off-planet longevity for humankind.
2018 – Ships a US $500 000 mini-submarine to the Thai cave rescue; unused, later displayed in a museum.
2020 – Supplies 1 200 ventilators and PPE to U.S. hospitals during Covid-19.
2021 – Stakes US $100 million on the Carbon-Removal XPrize, the richest climate bounty yet.
2022 – Deploys thousands of Starlink terminals in Ukraine, initially footing the bill before asking the Pentagon for ongoing costs.
2024 – Introduces the X Foundation micro-donations feature, allowing verified X users to tip open-source developers in crypto.
Family & Personal Life
2000 – Marries Canadian novelist Justine Wilson; their firstborn, Nevada Alexander, dies of SIDS at ten weeks.
2004 – IVF twins Griffin and Elon Musk son Xavier (now Vivian Jenna Wilson) are born.
2006 – IVF triplets Kai, Saxon and Damian arrive, bringing the couple’s total Elon Musk children to five.
2008 – Divorces Wilson; begins dating actress Talulah Riley.
2010 & 2013 – Marries, divorces, then remarries Riley; final split in 2016.
2015-2017 – Brief relationship with Amber Heard.
2020 – Welcomes son X Æ A-12 (later X Æ A-Xii) with musician Grimes.
2021 – Daughter Exa Dark Sideræl is born via surrogate; separation follows in 2022.
2021 – Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis gives birth to twins Strider and Azure, revealed in 2022.
2023 – Grimes discloses a third child, Techno Mechanicus.
2025 – Musk’s brood stands at 11 Elon Musk kids. He lives mainly in a US $50 000 prefab near Starbase after selling his California Elon Musk house portfolio; a Texas ranch hosts family visits. Height listed at 188 cm; he publicly states he is on the autism spectrum.
Scandals
2013 – Accuses New York Times of falsifying a Model S range test.
2018 – Tweets “funding secured” at US $420; settles with SEC for US $20 million and relinquishes Tesla’s chairmanship.
2018 – Labels Thai cave diver Vernon Unsworth “pedo guy”; jury finds no defamation, but reputation suffers.
2020 – Defies Alameda County’s Covid order by reopening the Fremont factory.
2021 – Dogecoin tweets spark an 800 percent rally; accusations of crypto manipulation follow.
2022 – X layoffs prompt wrongful-termination suits; NLRB investigates labour practices.
2023 – U.S. DOJ probes Tesla Autopilot crashes; Germany opens a parallel inquiry.
2024 – EU issues a formal disinformation warning to X; France examines Starlink export licensing to Ukraine.
2025 – House antitrust panel schedules hearings on data-sharing between xAI and X.
Honors & Recognition
2007 – R&D 100 Innovator of the Year.
2008 – Von Kármán Wings Award, National Space Society.
2013 – Royal Aeronautical Society Gold Medal.
2018 – Elected Fellow of the Royal Society.
2021 – TIME Person of the Year and Financial Times Business Person of the Year.
2022 – Axel Springer Award for disruptive leadership.
2023 – National Academy of Engineering inducts him for reusable-rocket systems.
2024 – Falcon 9 recognised by Guinness for most orbital launches by a single rocket class.
Awards
2010 – Heinlein Prize for commercial space innovation.
2015 – IEEE Honorary Membership for technological leadership.
2019 – Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication.
2022 – International Astronautical Federation World Space Award for Starship.
2025 – EY World Entrepreneur of the Year, citing robotaxi deployment and lunar-logistics contracts.
