Elon Musk: A billionaire on the way to the stars

Elon Musk has achieved what many others dream of: The entrepreneur is one of the richest people in the world. He became famous as one of the co-fathers of the now popular online payment service PayPal and became a star as the head of the electric car manufacturer Tesla and with the founding of the space company SpaceX. Musk, who celebrates his 50th birthday on June 28th, doesn’t think much of material possessions as one might assume.

When he’s not posting memes, the entrepreneur often shares surprising news with the world, especially via Twitter. Im selling “almost all physical possessions” – including the house of Hollywood legend Gene Wilder (1933-2016) – and not even wanting to own a house in the future. Since then, Musk has come closer to that personal goal: to have decided to “sell his last remaining house” as well. There is only one condition: Since it is a “special place”, a large family should live there in the future.

He had almost nothing

Musk was born in South Africa on June 28, 1971 and grew up in Pretoria. His parents Errol Musk and Maye Musk, 73, divorced when he was young. This also meant that the young Elon, who later emigrated to North America, just like his younger brother Kimbal (48) and his sister Tosca (46), had to learn to take on responsibility at an early age. “When the children grew up, they learned to be independent. I told them: As long as you are doing something good, it is also worth pursuing”,. That’s why she invested in Zip2, the first company her sons founded in 1995 together with Greg Kouri, who died in 2012.

In 2018, Musk remembered his humble beginnings. “I arrived in North America when I was 17, with $ 2,000, a backpack and a suitcase full of books,” said the entrepreneur. Musk had to finance his college education himself, according to his own account, he initially accumulated around 100,000 US dollars in debt. He invested about $ 2,000 in Zip2, his brother Kimbal contributed just under $ 5,000, and Kouri brought in $ 8,000. .

Kimbal that he and his brother slept in the office back then to save the money for an apartment. They would have showered at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), which is best known in Germany from the Village People’s song “YMCA”. According to media reports, tech company Compaq later bought Zip2 for more than $ 300 million. Musk is said to have received about $ 22 million of this – the basis of his wealth today. Musk currently has an estimated net worth of approximately $ 170 billion.

The big dream of Mars

What Musk tackles has turned into gold for many years. In terms of relationships, however, things are a little different. The 50-year-old has already been married several times – from 2000 to 2008 with the writer Justine Musk (48), then between 2010 and 2012 and from 2013 to 2016 with the actress Talulah Riley (35). He was later seen at the side of Johnny Depp’s (58) ex-wife Amber Heard (35) before dating singer Grimes (33) in 2018. Together with Justine Musk, the entrepreneur has five sons. The first born child of the two died in infancy. Another son comes from the relationship with Grimes. The little one, who bears the extremely unusual name X Æ A-Xii, was born in May 2020.

With SpaceX, Elon Musk wants to take mankind to the stars – or rather, to Mars. He has been talking about his project for years. For him, it is not about everyone moving to a different planet, but about becoming a “multiplanetarian” species, he explained in 2016. A colony with a million inhabitants on Mars in the next 100 years – or even sooner? Why not? The future is forked and for Musk there are two options: Either humanity will become a space traveler species that lives on several planets, or one will be stuck on one planet and succumb to a great mass extinction there.

Musk is quoted as saying: “You want to wake up in the morning and think the future will be great – and that’s what a spaceman civilization is about. It’s about believing and thinking about the future, that the future will be better than the past. And I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being under the stars. ”