Elon Reeve Musk Chronology

Born June 28, 1971

Elon is an engineer and technology entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of PayPal, co-chairman and co-founder OpenAl, founder of The Boring Company, CEO and co-founder of Neuralink, product architect, CEO and co-founder of Tesla Inc., the lead designer, CEO, and founder of SpaceX.

Musk was born to a Canadian mother and South African father and raised in  Pretoria, South Africa. He briefly attended the University of Pretoria before moving to Canada when he was 17 to attend Queens University.. He transferred to the University of Pennsylvania two years later, where he received dual bachelor's degrees in economics and physics. He moved to California in 1995 to begin a Ph.D. in applied physics and material sciences at Stanford University, but dropped out after 2 days to pursue a business career.

1980 parents divorce

1983-  sold first computer program called Blastar for $500

1989 -  June moved to Canada to attend Queens University – here he meet his future wife Justine

1992 - University of Pennsylvania, and graduated with an undergraduate degree in economics and stayed for a second bachelor's degree in physics.

1995 -  Musk and his brother, Kimbal, started Zip2, a web software company which developed and marketed an Internet city guide for the newspaper publishing industry.

1999  -  Feb. Sold Zip 2 to Compaq for US$307 million in cash and US$34 million in stock options in Musk received US$22 million for his 7 percent share from the sale.

  • March Co founded com,  an online financial services and e-mail payment company, with US$10 million from the sale of Zip2.

 

2000 -  X.com merged with Confinity, which had a money-transfer service called PayPal and became the CEO and company's largest shareholder by owning 11.7% of shares.

  • Married Canadian author Justine Wilson,
  • Their first son, Nevada Alexander Musk, died of sudden infant death syndrome at 10 weeks.
  • October Musk got Fired from PayPal          

 

2001 -  Musk conceptualized Mars Oasis, a project to land a miniature experimental greenhouse on Mars.

  • October 2001, Musk travelled to Moscow with 2 others to buy refurbished Dnepr Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that could send the envisioned payloads into space. Musk was seen as a novice and was consequently spat on by one of the Russian chief designers, and the group returned to the United States empty-handed.

2002 – February  the group returned to Russia with others to  look for three ICBMs.  The group were offered one rocket for US$8 million; however, this was seen by Musk as too expensive; Musk realized that he could start a company that could build the affordable rockets he needed.

  • May - Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, with US$100 million of his early fortune. Musk became the chief executive officer (CEO) and chief technology officer (CTO). SpaceX develops and manufactures space launch vehicles with a focus on advancing the state of rocket technology
  • October, PayPal was acquired by eBay for US$1.5 billion in stock, of which Musk received US$165 million.

2004 Musk and his wife had 2 sons, twins, through in vitro fertilization.

  • February Musk led the Series A round of investment for Tesla, joined Tesla's board of directors as its chairman.

2006 -  Musk and his wife had other 3 sons, triplets, through in vitro fertilization.

Musk provided the initial concept and financial capital for SolarCity, which was then co-founded by his cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive.  2006, SpaceX got various contracts from NASA to transport cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station.

2007 -  Musk became the CEO of Tesla

2008 - Musk assumed leadership of the company as CEO and product architect

  • Musk and his wife Justine were separated. They share custody of their five sons.
  • Began dating English actress Talulah Riley

2010 -  Married Talulah Riley

  • Musk Foundation collaborated with SolarCity to donate a 25-kW solar power system to the South Bay Community Alliance's hurricane response center in Coden, Alabama.

2011 – July  the Musk Foundation donated US$250,000 towards a solar power project in Sōma, Japan, a city that had been recently devastated by a tsunami.

2012 – January  Ends four year relationship with Riley.

  • Musk announced that SolarCity and Tesla are collaborating to use electric vehicle batteries to smooth the impact of rooftop solar on the power grid, with the program going live in 2013.
  • May, the SpaceX's vehicle, Dragon docked with the International Space Station (ISS), making history as the first commercial company to launch and berth a vehicle to the International Space Station.

2013, SolarCity was the second largest provider of solar power systems in the United States.

  • July Remarries Riley
  • August 2013, Musk unveiled a concept for a high-speed transportation system incorporating reduced-pressure tubes in which pressurized capsules ride on an air cushion driven by linear induction motors and air compressors.

2014, Musk announced that Tesla would allow its technology patents to be used by anyone in good faith in a bid to entice automobile manufacturers to speed up development of electric cars.

  • June , Musk committed to building a SolarCity advanced production facility in Buffalo, New York, that would triple the size of the largest solar plant in the United States. Construction on the factory started in 2014 and was completed in 2017.
  • December Musk made a guest appearance playing himself on The Simpsons in an episode titled "The Musk Who Fell to Earth"; the episode poked fun at many of Musk's ideas. donated US$10 million to the Future of Life Institute in January 2015, to run a global research program aimed at keeping artificial intelligence beneficial to humanity.

2015 - November Musk appeared in an episode of The Big Bang Theory, playing himself, volunteering at a soup kitchen with Wolowitz.

  • December , Musk announced the creation of OpenAI, a not-for-profit artificial intelligence (AI) research company. OpenAI aims to develop artificial general intelligence in a way that is safe and beneficial to humanity

2016 – Divorces Riley, Begins American actress Amber Heard in 2016 but the two split up after one year due to their conflicting schedules.

  • SolarCity was acquired by Tesla, Inc. in 2016 and is currently a wholly owned subsidiary of Tesla.
  • In 2016, Musk co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology startup company to integrate the human brain with artificial intelligence.
  • Musk appeared as himself in the romantic comedy film Why Him? where he was briefly met by one of the main characters, Ned Flemming played by Bryan Cranston, in a bar at a party.
  •  Musk was referenced by Dr. Martin Stein on The CW time-travel TV show DC's Legends of Tomorrow. During time travel to the past, Stein meets his younger self and introduced himself as Elon Musk, to disguise his own identity.
  • 2016, Musk's private trust holds 54% of SpaceX stock, equivalent to 78% of voting shares

2017  - May Hyperloop One, a company participating in Hyperloop competition, had announced that it had done its first successful test run on its DevLoop track in Nevada on July 13, 2017. It lasted 5.3 seconds, reaching a top speed of 70 mph.

2018 – May  Musk and Canadian musician Grimes revealed that they had begun dating.

  • September charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a tweet claiming that funding had been secured for taking Tesla private. According to Reuters, Musk said the tweet that cost him and the company $20 million in fines was "Worth It".

2019 – January, Musk traveled to China for the groundbreaking of Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory, which is the company's first large-scale plant outside the U.S.

 

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