Elon Musk: how the eccentric entrepreneur became the richest person in the world – NationalWorld

As well as being the richest man on the planet - ahead of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos - Elon Musk is famous for high-profile relationships with Amber Heard and Grimes

His private life has also been high-profile, with relationships with Grimes and Amber Heard filling gossip columns across the world.

So how did Elon Musk get so rich - and whats his background?

Heres everything you need to know.

What is Elon Musks background?

Elon Musk was born into a wealthy family in Pretoria, South Africa in 1971.

His mother, Maye, was a dietitian and model who had come from Canada, while his father, Errol, was an engineer.

He left for Canada at the age of 17 to avoid doing military service for the Apartheid regime and went to Queens University, Ontario before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 where he studied physics and business.

After graduating, he briefly enrolled for a physics PhD at Stanford University, California before setting up online business directory Zip2 with his younger brother Kimbal in 1995.

The pair sold the firm in 1999 for $307 million, with Elon Musk himself receiving $22 million from the deal.

How did Elon Musk get rich?

Unlike most other billionaires, Elon Musk made the bulk of his wealth through founding and investing in several successful ventures rather than having one big success, like Jeff Bezos did with Amazon or Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook.

After selling Zip2, he went into online banking and payments with controversial businessman Peter Thiel.

The pair set up what would later become PayPal.

His stake in the business netted him $180 million when it was bought by eBay in 2009.

In 2002, he founded SpaceX with an ambition to colonise Mars using affordable rockets and then ploughed $6 million into Tesla the following year, despite the company having never even built a real car at that point.

Both firms initially struggled, but by 2008 SpaceX had secured a $1.6 billion deal with NASA and Teslas first vehicle - the Model S - went into mass-production in 2012.

Nowadays, SpaceX is a key partner in NASA missions to the International Space Station and the moon, while you often see Teslas cars on roads in the US, UK and China.

Elon Musks fortune has grown to astronomical levels due to Teslas share price, which has tripled in value to more than $1 trillion over the last 18-months.

He currently holds between 17% and 21% of the companys shares - a stake valued in the region of $170 billion.

Meanwhile, Mr Musks 48% stake in $100 billion firm SpaceX makes up most of the rest of his fortune.

As if these ventures werent enough, Elon Musk has also set out with two other businesses in the last five years.

The Boring Company is a firm that digs big holes in the ground, while Neuralink is aiming to develop telepathic links to machines - an innovation which could transform the lives of people who have neurological disorders or severe spinal injuries.

Elon Musks Twitter buyout explained

Twitters board initially adopted a limited-duration shareholder rights plan - a mechanism that temporarily halted the takeover.

Its thought Twitter executives did this because they felt their platform was worth more than the 33 billion offered by Mr Musk.

However, reports emerged on Monday (25 April) that the social media giants board had met with the billionaire before announcing their intention to sell the company to him for $44billion later that day.

The change in stance is believed to have come about due to shareholder pressure, as well as the details about how Elon Musk would finance his bid.

Part of that financing emerged late on Thursday (28 April) when it emerged the billionaire had secured $4bn from selling Tesla shares.

Estimates suggest it could take six months until Mr Musks buyout of Twitter goes through.

He appeared to reveal his motivation for pursuing the deal was freedom of expression in a series of Tweets posted on 26 April.

Why is Elon Musk controversial?

Elon Musk has always been seen as something of an eccentric personality

For example, in an April 2022 TED Talk he said he couch surfs as he currently doesnt own a home.

But he is also a divisive figure - loved by people who idolise his ideas and maverick streak, and detested by those who see him as an out of touch rich person with abhorrent views.

Recent controversies surrounding Mr Musk include his downplaying the severity of Covid-19 in March 2020, his free speech stance, and criticism of the working culture at Tesla.

Mr Musk has also argued against paying more tax, despite an investigation by news site ProPublica finding he paid a low rate on his rapidly growing wealth between 2014 and 2018.

While his business success is in no doubt, Mr Musks erratic public behaviour in recent years has also led to several high profile gaffes that have cost both him and his investors millions of dollars.

That same year, he also blamed marijuana for an announcement he made on Twitter about taking Tesla back into private ownership for $420 a share - the number 420 being a reference to weed.

The Tweet rose the price of Tesla shares by 11% on the day it went out, but the marijuana revelation saw them dive 8.8% just a few weeks later.

It also led to a battle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission - a governmental body that regulates stockmarket activity, that said Mr Musk had provided misleading information about his intentions.

The SEC has since opened another investigation into whether Mr Musk and his brother broke insider trading laws after he published a Twitter poll in November 2021 asking his followers whether he should sell off some of his stake in Tesla.

The poll came just hours after his brother had allegedly sold $108 million in Tesla shares.

Mr Musk has made an apparent reference to cannabis again in his bid to buy Twitter, as he cited a share price of $54.20.

What is Elon Musks net worth?

According to Forbes, Elon Musk is currently worth $264.6 billion.

To put that figure into perspective, his current wealth is larger than the gross domestic product (GDP) of around 170 world states and economic regions, according to the latest World Bank data.

This includes the GDP of countries like New Zealand, Finland and Portugal.

It is also almost 10% of the UKs entire GDP.

See the original post:

Elon Musk: how the eccentric entrepreneur became the richest person in the world - NationalWorld