| Elon Musk  Born: 28-Jun-1971
Birthplace: Pretoria, South Africa
Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Business, Engineer Nationality: United States
Executive summary: CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors Elon Musk is a computer programmer, designer of rockets and electric cars, and entrepreneur who founded or co-founded PayPal, SpaceX and Tesla Motors. In his late teens he came to Canada to avoid the draft in his native South Africa, and in his 20s he earned degrees in physics and economics. In 1995 he quit a doctorate program at Stanford to market Zip2, a software system that became a widely-used publishing platform for newspapers' on-line editions. Four years later he sold his interest in Zip2 for more than $300M, and used the proceeds to found X.com, a system for processing payments via email. In 2000 X.com acquired its cross-town rival in Palo Alto, Peter Thiel and Max Levchin's Confinity, and in 2001 X.com was renamed PayPal. In 2002 PayPal was sold to eBay for $1.5B, and as Musk was majority owner before the sale, he presumably walked away with $700M or so.
In 2002 he established Space Exploration Technologies (also called SpaceX), a company that offers transport services into outer space, and has successfully launched rockets of Musk's design, placed a satellite into Earth orbit, and delivered a cargo payload the the International Space Station. In 2004 he provided the funding to establish Tesla Motors, manufacturer of all-electric vehicles which have sold briskly among those who can afford the rather steep price tag.
For fun he owns and flies a unarmed test version of an Aero L-39 Albatros military jet fighter, and he has said that he intends to retire on Mars. Jon Favreau, director of the original Iron Man movie, has said that Musk was his inspiration for the movie's characterization of eccentric inventor and billionaire Tony Stark. Father: Errol Musk
Mother: Maye Haldeman (dietitian)
Brother: Kimbal Musk (restaurateur)
Sister: Tosca Musk (film producer)
Wife: Jennifer Wilson ("Justine", novelist, b. 1972, div., five children)
Girlfriend: Talulah Riley (actress, b. 26-Sep-1985, fiancée 2010)
High School: Pretoria Boys High School, Pretoria, South Africa (1988)
University: Queen's University Kingston (attended)
University: BA Economics, University of Pennsylvania
University: BS Physics, University of Pennsylvania (1995)
University: Stanford University (briefly attended, 1995)
Tesla Motors CEO (2003-)
SpaceX Founder and CEO (2002-)
PayPal CEO (2000)
X.com Founder and CEO (1999-2001)
Zip2 Corp. Founder, CEO, and CTO (1995-99)
Member of the Board of Everdream Software
Member of the Board of PayPal (2000-02)
Member of the Board of SolarCity Corp.
Member of the Board of Surrey Satellite Technology
Member of the Board of Tesla Motors (as Chairman, 2004-)
Member of the Board of X.com (as Chairman, 1999-2000)
Member of the Board of Zip2 Corp. (as Chairman, 1995-99)
Bush-Cheney '04
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
Democratic National Committee
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
Forward Together PAC
Friends for Harry Reid
FWD.us (withdrew support)
Hillary Clinton for President
John Kerry for President
Mars Society
National Republican Congressional Committee
Obama for America
Obama Victory Fund 2012
Planetary Society Board of Directors
Senate Victory Fund PAC
The Space Foundation Board of Directors
Naturalized US Citizen
Visited Burning Man
Canadian Ancestry Maternal
South African Ancestry Paternal
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Why Him? (17-Dec-2016)
Before the Flood (9-Sep-2016) · Himself
Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World (23-Jan-2016) · Himself
Pump (12-Sep-2014) · Himself
Machete Kills (19-Sep-2013) · Himself
Revenge of the Electric Car (22-Apr-2011) · Himself
Iron Man 2 (26-Apr-2010) · Himself
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