Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X celebrating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the first commercial spacecraft to dock with the International Spaceport Station. Area, X (A Britannica Publishing Partner), (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa), South African-born American entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment firm Pay, Pal and formed Space, X, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He was also one of the first significant financiers in, as well as chief executive officer of, the electric car producer Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Friend and established the spacecraft business Space, X.
Elon Musk founded Space, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the president and a significant funder of Tesla, which makes electrical cars. 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 publication. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa since he was unwilling to support apartheid through required military service and due to the fact that he looked for the higher economic chances readily 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 established Zip2, a company that provided maps and business directory sites to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online financial services company, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Buddy, which focused on moving money online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to survive, mankind has to become a multiplanet species. Nevertheless, he was disappointed with the excellent expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Exploration Technologies (Area, X) to make more cost effective rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first introduced in 2018), was created 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 very first stage would be capable of raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft developed for supplying fast transportation in between cities on Earth and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can carry as numerous as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight bring astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk looked for to reduce the expenditure of spaceflight by establishing a completely reusable rocket that could raise off and go back to the pad it released from. Beginning in 2012, Space, X's Grasshopper rocket made numerous short flights to evaluate such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was also primary designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to exclusive material. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electric automobiles, and in 2004 he ended up being one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later on renamed Tesla), an electric automobile company founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.