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Elon Musk (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa) South African-born
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American entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment firm PayPal and
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formed SpaceX, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He was also one of the first
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significant investors in, as well as chief executive officer of, the electric
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car manufacturer Tesla. In addition, Musk acquired Twitter (later X) in 2022.
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Early life
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Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early
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talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a video game and sold
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it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left
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South Africa because he was unwilling to support apartheid through compulsory
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military service and because he sought the greater economic opportunities available in
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the United States.
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PayPal and SpaceX
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Musk attended Queen鈥檚 University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he transferred to
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the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he received bachelor鈥檚 degrees
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in physics and economics in 1997. He enrolled in graduate school in physics at Stanford
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University in California, but he left after only two days because he felt that
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the Internet had much more potential to change society than work in physics. In 1995 he
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founded Zip2, a company that provided maps and business directories to online
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newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307
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million, and Musk then founded an online financial services company, X.com, which
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later became PayPal, which specialized in transferring money online. The online
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auction eBay bought PayPal in 2002 for $1.5 billion.
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