Elon Musk - Biography & Facts - Britannica

Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X Continue reading commemorating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the very first business spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station. Space, X (A Britannica Publishing Partner), (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, Visit the website South Africa), South African-born American business owner who cofounded the electronic-payment firm Pay, Friend and formed Area, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was also one of the very tfsites.blob.core.windows.net/elonmusk/hyperloop/elon-musk-doesn-t-move-lips.html first substantial financiers in, as well as ceo of, the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla. Leading Concerns, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Pal and founded the spacecraft elon musk education company Space, X.

Elon Musk established Area, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the ceo and a major funder of Tesla, that makes electrical cars. Musk was born to a South African daddy and a Canadian mom. He displayed an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a computer game and offered it to a computer publication. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa due to the fact that he hesitated to support apartheid through required military service and since he sought the higher financial opportunities available in the United States. Musk went to Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he got bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.

In 1995 he founded Zip2, a company that supplied maps and service directories to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services company, X.com, which later on became Pay, Pal, which focused on transferring money online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Buddy in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to endure, humankind needs to end up being a multiplanet species. However, he was dissatisfied with the great expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Space Expedition Technologies (Area, X) to Discover more make more economical rockets.

A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first launched in 2018), was created to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its biggest rival, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Area, X has actually revealed the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very first phase would can raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft developed for providing quick transportation in between cities in the world and building bases on the Moon and Mars.

Dragon can carry as numerous as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk looked for to minimize the expense of spaceflight by establishing a totally reusable rocket that could lift off and go back to the pad it launched from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made several short flights to test such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also primary designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive material. Subscribe Now Musk had long been interested in the possibilities of electric vehicles, and in 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later relabelled Tesla), an electrical automobile company established by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.