Elon Musk Then and Now

He sold a video game at 12 for $500. 🚀 Today he’s the richest man on Earth, worth over $400 billion. Elon Musk went from a bullied kid in South Africa to running SpaceX, Tesla, X, and xAI. This is the updated story.

Elon Musk Then 🌱

Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa. His father was South African, his mother Canadian.

As a kid, he was quiet and bookish. He taught himself to code at 10. At just 12, he created a video game called “Blastar” and sold it to a computer magazine for $500.

School was tough. He was bullied badly. But he kept coding, kept reading, kept dreaming about space and the future.

In 1988, at 17, he left South Africa. He got a Canadian passport through his mother. He opposed apartheid and didn’t want to serve in its military.

He landed in Canada with little money. He worked odd jobs — cleaning boilers, cutting lumber. Then he went to Queen’s University in Ontario.

In 1992, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania. He studied physics and economics. He graduated in 1997.

He enrolled at Stanford for a PhD in physics. He quit after just 2 days. The internet was exploding, and he didn’t want to miss it.

In 1995, he founded Zip2 with his brother Kimbal. It provided online maps and business directories to newspapers. Compaq bought it in 1999 for $307 million.

With that money, he founded X.com — an online payment company. It became PayPal. eBay bought PayPal in 2002 for $1.5 billion.

Musk was now rich. But he didn’t retire. He had bigger plans — much bigger.

The Middle: SpaceX, Tesla, and X 👑

In 2002, Musk founded SpaceX. His goal: make rockets cheaper and colonize Mars.

People laughed. Rockets were for governments, not startups. SpaceX nearly went bankrupt. Three launches failed. The fourth succeeded in 2008 — just in time.

NASA gave SpaceX a $1.6 billion contract. The company survived. Today SpaceX is the world’s most successful rocket company.

Falcon 9 lands its boosters and reuses them. Dragon carries astronauts to the ISS. Starship — the biggest rocket ever — is testing for Mars missions.

In 2004, Musk invested in Tesla Motors. He became CEO in 2008. The company nearly died multiple times. The Model 3 almost killed it.

But Tesla survived. It became the world’s most valuable car company. Model Y became the best-selling car on Earth. Tesla changed the entire auto industry.

Like Warren Buffett, Musk bets big and holds long. Like Carlos Slim, he buys when others panic and builds through crises.

In 2022, Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion. He renamed it X. He cut staff, changed verification, and pushed for free speech. Advertisers fled, but X survived.

In 2023, he founded xAI — his artificial intelligence company. Its chatbot Grok competes with ChatGPT. Musk says AI is the most important technology in history.

Elon Musk Now 📈

Today, Elon Musk is 55 and worth over $400 billion. He’s the richest person on Earth — by a massive margin.

He runs four major companies: SpaceX (rockets), Tesla (cars + energy), X (social media), and xAI (artificial intelligence). Plus Neuralink (brain chips) and The Boring Company (tunnels).

SpaceX is launching Starship regularly. Starlink — its satellite internet — serves millions of customers in 140+ countries. It’s Musk’s cash machine.

Tesla is pushing robotaxis and Optimus humanoid robots. Musk says robots will be bigger than cars. The market is skeptical, but he’s been right before.

xAI’s Grok is gaining users fast. Musk merged xAI with X in 2025, combining the AI company with the social platform’s data and distribution.

His personal life remains busy. He has 14+ children with several partners. He lives mostly in Texas, near SpaceX’s Starbase facility.

From a bullied kid coding in Pretoria to the man building rockets, electric cars, AI, and brain chips.

Elon Musk didn’t just join the future. He’s building it — one impossible company at a time. 💪