50 Fun Facts About Elon Musk

In which city was Elon Musk born?

He was born on June 28, 1971, into a wealthy family in South Africa's administrative capital.

Musk holds Canadian citizenship from birth because of which relative?

His mother Maye is a model and dietitian; her father moved the family to South Africa in 1950.

What BASIC video game did 12-year-old Musk sell to a magazine for about $500?

He had taught himself to program from the manual of a Commodore VIC-20.

Which Canadian university did Musk attend for two years before transferring to Penn?

He arrived in Canada in June 1989 and worked on a farm and in a lumber mill before enrolling.

Musk was accepted to a graduate programme at which university in 1995 but never enrolled?

He dropped the materials-science plan to start his first company during the dot-com boom.

Musk's first company, Zip2, provided what kind of software?

He built a fake supercomputer casing around an ordinary PC to impress investors.

Which computer company bought Zip2 for $307 million in 1999?

Musk's 7 percent share earned him $22 million.

Musk's online payments start-up X.com merged in 2000 with which company to form what became PayPal?

Confinity, founded by Max Levchin and Peter Thiel, already ran the more popular PayPal service.

Which company bought PayPal for $1.5 billion in 2002?

As the largest shareholder, with 11.72 percent, Musk received $175.8 million.

In 2017 Musk bought back which internet domain from PayPal, saying it had sentimental value?

He later used it in his rebranding of Twitter.

In what year did Musk found SpaceX?

He put in $100 million of his own fortune and took the titles of CEO and chief engineer.

How many times did SpaceX's first rocket fail before it finally reached orbit in 2008?

The failures nearly bankrupted the company; the fourth launch made SpaceX the first private firm to put a liquid-fuelled rocket in orbit.

In 2012 SpaceX's Dragon became the first commercial spacecraft to do what?

NASA had awarded the company a $1.6 billion resupply contract in 2008.

SpaceX first landed a Falcon 9 first stage back on land in which year?

Reusing boosters was the key to slashing launch costs.

What dummy payload rode on the first Falcon Heavy launch in 2018?

A spacesuited mannequin called Starman sat in the driver's seat with the stereo looping David Bowie.

The Roadster launched into space carries which novel in its glovebox, plus a towel?

Musk has cited the book, along with Lord of the Rings and the Foundation series, as an influence.

The mannequin in the space-bound Roadster was named after a song by which artist?

The car's sound system was set to loop "Space Oddity" by the same singer.

SpaceX's 2020 Demo-2 mission made it the first private company to do what?

The crewed Dragon docked with the ISS, restoring American crew launches for the first time since the Shuttle.

What is the name of SpaceX's satellite internet constellation?

Development began in 2015; SpaceX estimated the decade-long project would cost $10 billion.

Musk was not one of Tesla's original founders. Who incorporated Tesla Motors in 2003?

A 2009 lawsuit settlement allowed five men, Musk included, to call themselves co-founders.

How much did Musk invest in Tesla's 2004 Series A to become its largest shareholder?

He became CEO and product architect four years later, in 2008.

Tesla's first car, delivered from 2008, was the first mass-produced all-electric car to use what?

About 2,500 of the two-seat sports cars were sold.

Musk's car company is named in tribute to which inventor?

Company headquarters moved from California to Austin, Texas.

Musk's 2018 "funding secured" tweet about taking Tesla private led the SEC to fine him and Tesla how much apiece?

He also had to give up the chairmanship for three years while staying on as CEO.

Which solar company, founded by Musk's cousins, did Tesla buy for about $2 billion in 2016?

Lyndon and Peter Rive founded it in 2006 on Musk's concept and seed money.

What did Musk unveil in 2013 as a cheaper way to travel long distances?

He assigned engineers from Tesla and SpaceX to sketch out the concept.

Musk co-founded which artificial intelligence lab in December 2015, later leaving it?

He pledged $1 billion but donated $50 million; his later rival lab was xAI.

Musk co-founded Neuralink in which year?

He put in $100 million; in 2021 the company showed a macaque playing Pong with an implant.

What did Neuralink call the brain implant given to its first human patient in 2024?

By February the patient could move a computer mouse by thought.

Musk said frustration with traffic in which city inspired the Boring Company?

He announced the idea in December 2016; its first working system was the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop in 2021.

The Boring Company sold 20,000 of which novelty item in a few days in 2018?

After customs objections Musk renamed the product "Not-A-Flamethrower".

The Boring Company's first working transport system opened in 2021 beneath what venue?

The 1.7-mile, three-station loop has since been extended to Resorts World.

How much did Musk pay to acquire Twitter in 2022?

His per-share offer of $54.20 was widely read as a nod to the number 420.

Musk's Twitter offer priced shares at $54.20; the figure was widely seen as a reference to what?

The deal was announced on April 14, 2022, and closed on October 27.

In what month and year was Twitter officially rebranded as X?

Linda Yaccarino had been named CEO of X Corp shortly before.

Musk was named Time magazine's Person of the Year for which year?

Editor Edward Felsenthal cited his influence on life on Earth and potentially off it.

While hosting which TV show in 2021 did Musk say he has Asperger syndrome?

He was the first host to make the disclosure on the programme.

Musk appeared as himself in which 2010 Marvel film?

Larry Ellison and Bill O'Reilly also cameoed as themselves.

What name did Musk and Grimes originally give their first child in 2020?

California rules on non-English characters meant the birth certificate reads X, with Æ A-Xii as a middle name.

Musk's first wife, Justine Wilson, is an author from which country?

They met at Queen's University and married in 2000.

Which English actress was Musk married to, and divorced from, twice?

They began dating in 2008 and finalised the second divorce in 2016.

Which body, known as DOGE, did Musk lead de facto after Trump's January 2025 inauguration?

Its acronym, DOGE, matched the meme cryptocurrency he had long promoted; he left the role in May 2025.

Musk's younger brother, who co-founded Zip2 with him, is called what?

He put $5,000 into the start-up alongside Elon's $2,000 and Greg Kouri's $8,000.

Musk's maternal grandfather Joshua Haldeman was an activist in which political movement?

The American-born Canadian chiropractor and aviator moved to South Africa in 1950 and died in a plane crash when Musk was a toddler.

Why did the nine-year-old Musk choose to live with his father after his parents' 1979 divorce?

Musk later regretted the decision and became estranged from his father, Errol.

Where did Musk graduate before leaving South Africa?

He was a decent but unexceptional student, scoring 61/100 in Afrikaans.

After arriving in Canada in June 1989, Musk worked odd jobs including at a farm and what else?

He first connected with a second cousin in Saskatchewan before entering Queen's University in 1990.

What did xAI launch in October 2025 as an AI-generated alternative to Wikipedia?

Its articles are generated and reviewed by the Grok chatbot; researchers found it often reused Wikipedia content.

Musk's first vote for a Republican, in 2022, went to which Texas congressional candidate?

The same year he gave more than $50 million to the conservative PAC Citizens for Sanity.

Where in Texas did Musk settle after leaving California in late 2020?

He said California had become 'complacent' about its economic success; he had become a US citizen in 2002.