Elon Musk Trivia | 100 facts about the entrepreneur

Elon Musk is an entrepreneur, investor, and business magnate. He made headlines recently with his announcement of buying Twitter.

So let’s dive into some trivia and facts about his life and career.

1. His full name is Elon Reeve Musk
2. He was born in June 28, 1971
3. He is an entrepreneur, investor, and business magnate
4. He is the founder, CEO, and Chief Engineer at SpaceX
5. Musk is also the early-stage investor, CEO, and Product Architect of Tesla, Inc.
6. And the founder of The Boring Company
7. And co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI
8. With an estimated net worth of around US$273 billion as of April 2022
9. Musk is the wealthiest person in the world according to both the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and the Forbes real-time billionaires list
10. Musk was born to a Canadian mother and White South African father
11. Musk was raised in Pretoria, South Africa
12. He briefly attended the University of Pretoria
13. He then moved to Canada at age 17 to avoid conscription
14. He was enrolled at Queen’s University and transferred to the University of Pennsylvania two years later
15. There he received a bachelor’s degree in economics and physics
16. He moved to California in 1995 to attend Stanford University
17. He decided instead to pursue a business career
18. Then he co-founded the web software company Zip2 with his brother Kimbal
19. The startup was acquired by Compaq for $307 million in 1999
20. The same year, Musk co-founded online bank X.com
21. It later merged with Confinity in 2000 to form PayPal
22. The company was bought by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion
23. In 2002, Musk founded SpaceX, an aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company, of which he is CEO and Chief Engineer
24. In 2004, he joined electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors, Inc. (now Tesla, Inc.) as chairman and product architect
25. Elon Musk became its CEO in 2008
26. In 2006, he helped create SolarCity, a solar energy services company that was later acquired by Tesla and became Tesla Energy
27. In 2015, he co-founded OpenAI, a nonprofit research company that promotes friendly artificial intelligence
28. In 2016, he co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology company focused on developing brain–computer interfaces
29. He founded The Boring Company, a tunnel construction company
30. He also agreed to purchase the major American social networking service Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion
31. Musk has proposed the Hyperloop, a high-speed vactrain transportation system
32. Elon Musk has been criticized for making unscientific and controversial statements
33. In 2018, he was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for falsely tweeting that he had secured funding for a private takeover of Tesla
34. He settled with the SEC but did not admit guilt, temporarily stepping down from his chairmanship and agreeing to limitations on his Twitter usage
35. In 2019, he won a defamation trial brought against him by a British caver who advised in the Tham Luang cave rescue
36. Musk has also been criticized for spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic
37. And for his other views on such matters as artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, and public transport
38. Musk made $175.8 million when PayPal was sold to eBay in 2002
39. He was first listed on the Forbes Billionaires List in 2012, with a net worth of $2 billion
40. At the start of 2020, Musk had a net worth of $27 billion
41. By the year’s end his net worth had increased by $150 billion
42. This was largely driven by his ownership of around 20% of Tesla stock
43. During this, Musk’s net worth was often volatile. For example, it dropped $16.3 billion in September, the largest single-day plunge in the history of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index
44. In November of that year, Musk passed Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg to become the third-richest person in the world
45. A week later he passed Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to become the second-richest
46. In January 2021, Musk, with a net worth of $185 billion, surpassed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to become the richest person in the world
47. Bezos reclaimed the top spot the following month
48. On September 27, 2021, Forbes announced that Musk had a net worth of over $200 billion
49. He was the richest person in the world, after Tesla stock surged
50. In November 2021, Musk became the first person with a net worth over $300 billion
51. Around three-quarters of Musk’s wealth derives from Tesla
52. Musk does not receive a salary from Tesla
53. He agreed in 2018 to a compensation plan with the board that ties his personal earnings to Tesla’s valuation and revenue
54. The deal stipulated that Musk only receives the compensation if Tesla reaches certain market values
55. It was the largest such deal ever done between a CEO and board
56. In the first award, given in May 2020, he was eligible to purchase 1.69 million TSLA shares (about 1% of the company) at below-market prices, which was worth about $800 million
57. Musk paid $455 million in taxes on $1.52 billion of income between 2014 and 2018
58. According to ProPublica, Musk paid no federal income taxes in 2018
59. His 2021 tax bill was estimated at $12 billion based on his sale of $14 billion worth of Tesla stock
60. Musk has repeatedly described himself as “cash poor”, and has “professed to have little interest in the material trappings of wealth”
61. In 2012, Musk signed The Giving Pledge and, in May 2020, pledged to “sell almost all physical possessions”
62. In 2021, Musk defended his wealth by saying he is “accumulating resources to help make life multiplanetary [and] extend the light of consciousness to the stars”
63. In the early 2000s, Musk was[clarification needed] a private pilot, his favorite aircraft then being the L-39 Albatros, though he decided to stop piloting by 2008
64. He uses a private jet owned by SpaceX and acquired a second jet in August 2020
65. The jet’s heavy use of fossil fuels—it flew over 150,000 miles in 2018—has received criticism
66. Musk met his first wife, Canadian author Justine Wilson, while attending Queen’s University
67. They were married in 2000
68. He contracted malaria in 2000 while on vacation in South Africa, and nearly died
69. In 2002, their first child, son Nevada Alexander Musk, died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) at the age of 10 weeks
70. After his death, the couple decided to use IVF to continue their family
71. Twins Xavier and Griffin were born in April 2004, followed by triplets Kai, Saxon, and Damian in 2006
72. The couple divorced in 2008 and share custody of their five sons
73. In 2008, Musk began dating English actress Talulah Riley
74. They married in September 2010 at Dornoch Cathedral in Scotland
75. In 2012, he announced a divorce from Riley
76. In 2013, Musk and Riley remarried
77. In December 2014, he filed for a second divorce from Riley
78. However, the action was withdrawn
79. A second divorce was finalized in 2016
80. Musk then dated Amber Heard for several months in 2017
81. He had reportedly been pursuing her since 2012
82. Musk was later accused by Johnny Depp of having an affair with Heard while she was still married to Depp
83. Musk and Heard both denied the affair
84. In May 2018, Musk and Canadian musician Grimes revealed that they were dating
85. Grimes gave birth to their son in May 2020
86. According to Musk and Grimes, his name was “X Æ A-12”
87. However, the name would have violated California regulations as it contained characters that are not in the modern English alphabet
88. It was then changed to “X Æ A-Xii”
89. This drew more confusion, as Æ is not a letter in the modern English alphabet
90. The child was eventually named “X AE A-XII” Musk, with “X” as a first name, “AE A-XII” as a middle name, and “Musk” as surname
91. Musk confirmed reports that the couple are “semi-separated” in September 2021
92. In an interview with Time in December 2021, he said he was single
93. In March 2022, Grimes said of her relationship with Musk: “I would probably refer to him as my boyfriend, but we’re very fluid”
94. She further revealed that their first daughter, Exa Dark Sideræl Musk, nicknamed Y, was born in December 2021 via surrogate
95. Later that month, Grimes tweeted that she and Musk had broken up again “but he’s my best friend and the love of my life”
96. From the early 2000s until late 2020, Musk resided in California where both Tesla and SpaceX were founded and where their headquarters are still located
97. In 2020, he moved to Texas, stating that California had become “complacent” with its economic success
98. During his hosting of Saturday Night Live in May 2021, Musk stated that he has Asperger syndrome
99. Musk has had multiple cameos and appearances in films such as Iron Man 2 (2010), Why Him? (2016), and Men in Black: International (2019)
100. Television series on which he has appeared include The Simpsons (“The Musk Who Fell to Earth”, 2015), The Big Bang Theory (“The Platonic Permutation”, 2015), South Park (“Members Only”, 2016), Rick and Morty (“One Crew over the Crewcoo’s Morty”, 2019) and Saturday Night Live (2021)