Video launched by spacecraft maker Area, X celebrating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the first business spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station. Area, X (A Britannica Publishing Partner), (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa), South African-born American business owner who cofounded the electronic-payment firm Pay, Friend and formed Space, X, maker of launch cars and spacecraft. He was likewise one of the very first considerable financiers in, as well as ceo of, the electric automobile producer Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Friend and founded the More help spacecraft company Space, X.

Elon Musk established Space, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the chief executive officer and a significant funder of Tesla, that makes electric automobiles. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mom. He showed an early talent for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a video game and sold it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa since he hesitated to support apartheid through compulsory military service and because he looked for the greater financial opportunities readily available in the United States. Musk participated in Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he moved 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 provided maps and service directory sites to online elon musk twitter newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online financial services company, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Friend, which specialized in transferring cash online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to survive, mankind needs to end up being a multiplanet species. However, he was disappointed with the great expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Space Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more cost effective rockets.

A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first released in 2018), was developed to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly two times as much as its biggest competitor, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Space, X has revealed the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy first phase would can raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for providing fast transportation between cities on Earth and building bases on the Moon and Mars.

Dragon can carry as lots of as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight bring astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk sought to decrease the expenditure of spaceflight by developing a totally multiple-use rocket that might take off and go back to the pad it released from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made a number of short flights to test such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was likewise chief designer in developing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to unique material. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electric cars and trucks, and in 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electrical car company established by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.