Elon Musk is a 51-year-old South African billionaire businessman who currently serves as CEO of the Twitter app as well as SpaceX, an aerospace company, where he is also the founder and engineer. He also holds shares in Tesla products. According to Forbes, he was the richest person in the world in 2023.
To reach his current status, the businessman had to go through various experiences during his education in the United States, where he studied physics and economics at the University of Pennsylvania.
As a child, the man born in South Africa had already shown talent in creating applications and had even taught himself programming—so his current success comes as no surprise.
Elon has often said that in his life, he was first educated through reading, and only then by his parents.
One of the key characteristics for companies today is the power of innovation. Musk has always shown a drive to push his projects forward and never remain stagnant, which also explains his strong leadership within his organizations and his many launches in recent years.
His image has reached such a powerful status that he is widely respected, and the fame he gained as his ventures advanced allowed him to connect with all kinds of people and forge new contacts.
The Moves That Made Elon Musk a Billionaire
To put things into context, the 51-year-old is the first person ever to surpass a net worth of 200 billion dollars. No one in history had ever achieved this before, and the entrepreneur—who holds Canadian and American citizenship—was the first.
So, when thinking about this immense fortune, only one question comes to mind: how did he achieve this wealth?
To reach his current position, the economist from Pretoria followed a long path as an employee at various U.S. companies, which later grew and were sold for significant amounts of money.
The business model of the current owner of Twitter, with his earlier ventures, was to grow them, merge with other companies, and then sell them for profits that allowed him to reinvest in new projects.
This continuous cycle eventually led him to own SpaceX, an aerospace technology company he founded with the aim of reducing the cost of space launches and enabling exploration of other worlds in the future.
Tesla CEO and His Interest in Renewable Energy
Tesla was founded in 2003, and the following year, Musk joined the company through an investment made with the profits from his previously sold ventures.
To provide context, Tesla is a company focused on electric cars, which essentially use motors powered by energy—a topic that has always interested Musk and one he sees as key to the future.
Today, he is the current CEO of the electric car company and has set a goal for the company to contribute to environmental conservation through the production of eco-friendly electric vehicles.
Let’s not forget that the entrepreneur, based in the United States, also acquired a company called SolarCity through Tesla, which was the number one company in the country for solar panel installation.
The Twitter Acquisition, One of the Most Expensive in Social Media History
The acquisition of Twitter cost the South African businessman 44 billion dollars—one of the most expensive operations in recent years for a social media platform, and also one of the most controversial, due to the back-and-forth between Musk and the app.
At first, Musk joined the app’s organization as a shareholder, and then aimed to become part of the board of directors in order to implement his ideas and innovations.
Eventually, he succeeded and took full ownership of Twitter—perhaps just another strategic move in his professional career.
From his earliest involvement in the leadership circle overseeing the app, Elon always expressed his desire to change and improve the system, and also disagreed with several aspects of how it operated.
Today, he is the owner of Twitter, and despite a drop in the company’s value after the acquisition, Musk stayed true to his principles and didn’t pay much attention to the losses.
Inventor and entrepreneur are just some of the terms used to describe Elon Musk—a billionaire who focused on investing his money to make more money, and who continues this cycle to this day. His companies now focus on protecting and preserving the environment.
A few years ago, he was awarded Person of the Year for his contributions to planet Earth. Meanwhile, the world’s richest man isn’t slowing down and continues to innovate. What will his next move be?